Uttakhand minister Yashpal Arya defects to BJP, gets party ticket along with son

DEHRADUN: In a blow to the Congress barely a month ahead of assembly elections, state cabinet minister

Yashpal Arya

, his son Sanjeev, and former Yamunotri MLA Kedar Singh Rawat joined the BJP in the presence of party chief Amit Shah in Delhi on Monday. Within hours of the move, all three had made it to the BJP’s first list of candidates for assembly polls scheduled for February 15.

While five-time MLA Arya is BJP nominee from Bajpur, his son Sanjeev will make his election debut from Nainital. Rawat will jump into the fray from Yamunotri constituency. They were among the 64 candidates whose names were announced by the BJP for the 70-seat assembly polls.

Arya, who was revenue and irrigation minister in the Harish Rawat-led government, is the 11th MLA to part ways with the Congress and join its rival BJP since the political turmoil broke out in the hill state on March 18, 2016. Arya is believed to have been upset with the functioning of chief minister Rawat. According to party insiders, Arya also wanted to field his son Sanjeev in the elections from Nainital assembly seat, a wish that the BJP has fulfilled.

With the exit of Arya, Congress has lost a prominent Dalit face of the party, who enjoys a strong support base in Kumaon. After joining the BJP, Arya said, “I have remained a soldier of the Congress for over 40 years and I am leaving it with a heavy heart. The party principles have changed and there is no place for people like me in the party.”

In his four decades-long association with the Congress, Arya donned several roles, from being the speaker of the Uttarakhand assembly (2002-2007) to holding the post of Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief from 2007 to 2014.