With the Congress accusing the BJP of attempting to topple the Harish Rawat-led Uttarakhand government, senior BJP leader and Union minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday claimed there is a “deep divison” wi
With the Congress accusing the BJP of attempting to topple the Harish Rawat-led Uttarakhand government, senior BJP leader and Union minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday claimed there is a “deep divison” within the state’s ruling party.
After nine Congress MLAs rebelled against their own government and sided with the BJP to stall the finance bill, the BJP claimed that Congress leaders were quitting the party which had become a “sinking ship” due to a “serious leadership crisis”.
“There is deep division in the Congress in Uttarakhand... it should not be attributed to the BJP,” Mr Jaitley replied to a question on the Uttarakhand political crisis.
Describing the situation as “amazing” — where the “majority” voted against a bill but the Assembly Speaker announced it to be passed — Mr Jaitley said that in the Congress, if one person becomes the chief minister, another starts pulling that person down.
Union home minister Rajnath Singh also claimed that his party was not involved in derailing the Uttrakhand claimed and asserted that BJP does not indulge in “tod phod ki rajniti (the politics of breaking up the government)” as its own popularity and acceptance is on a rise.
Reacting to Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi’s allegation that the BJP was trying to topple the elected government in Uttarakhand with “horse trading and blatant misuse of money and muscle”, BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma said: “There is a serious leadership crisis in the Congress. It has become a sinking ship and its leaders are leaving it as soon as they get a chance. Rahul Gandhi should not blame BJP for it.” He claimed that Congress MLAs in the hilly state had long been discontented and that it was due to this that the party had to remove one chief minister, Vijay Bahuguna, earlier and was now faced with rebellion against another chief minister.
“Rahul Gandhi is sad and disappointed over the state of affairs in his party. He should put his own house in order instead of blaming others for his failures,” Mr Sharma said.
He alleged that Congress had been shrinking since Sonia Gandhi took over its leadership and had been losing one state election after another following its loss in the Lok Sabha polls.
