Uttarakhand Congress MLA Rajkumar on Sunday returned to the BJP, with the saffron party now aggressively poaching from rival camps.
He is the second MLA after Pritam Singh Panwar, an independent MLA who was a Minister in the Harish Rawat-led Congress government till 2017 to join the BJP, which is hoping to retain Uttarakhand where it has changed two Chief Ministers in a span of months this year. Uttarakhand is heading for polls early next year.
Rajkumar joined the party in the presence of Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and Uttarakhand BJP president Madan Kaushik.
Rajkumar was with the BJP from 2007 to 2012 but he was denied a ticket in 2012 and 2017 following which he joined Congress.
"The BJP is working towards making people from the lower castes independent, while Congress has made these people dependent on subsidies since Independence. I have joined the party today after seeing BJP's great work in Uttarakhand," Rajkumar said.
A survey by ABP-CVoter earlier this month has predicted that the BJP may return to power this time too but it may not be able to repeat the 2017 results when it won 57 out of 70 seats.
The BJP last week appointed Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi as the BJP election in-charge of Uttarakhand. Sardar RP Singh will be co-in-charge in Uttarakhand, assisting Joshi.
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