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Uttarakhand Assembly Polls: Former State Congress President Kishore Upadhyay Joins BJP
Swarajya Staff
Jan 27, 2022, 11:15 AM | Updated 11:25 AM IST
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Former Uttarakhand Congress president Kishore Upadhyay has joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday (27 January).
Upadhyay joined the BJP after he was expelled from the Congress for six years for anti-party activities amid speculation that he might join the BJP.
"I have joined BJP with the spirit of taking Uttarakhand forward," Upadhyay said after joining BJP, reports Hindustan Times.
Upadhyay was earlier removed from all party positions as a disciplinary action after he met BJP leaders in Dehradun, including the party's election in-charge for Uttarakhand Pralhad Joshi.
Speculation is rife that BJP might field him from the Tehri Assembly seat which he had won in 2002 and 2007.
Assembly polls in Uttarakhand will be held on 14 February.
The development comes nearly two weeks after BJP expelled Harak Singh Rawat, a minister in state government, from the party.
Rawat, who quit Congress to join BJP in 2016, later joined the Congress in Delhi along with his daughter-in-law Anukriti Gusain.
Harak Singh Rawat, who represented the Kotdwar seat in the Uttarakhand Assembly, was among the 10 MLAs who had rebelled against the then chief minister Harish Rawat-led state government in 2016 and joined the BJP, reducing the Congress dispensation to a minority.
(With inputs from PTI)
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