Uttarakhand: Accused of selling party tickets after poll drubbing, Harish Rawat suggests Congress should expel him

Talking to media persons at his Dehradun residence, the 73-year-old leader said, “I have already taken moral responsibility for the defeat and have submitted my resignation as the campaign committee chairman on the same day. In fact, state president Ganesh Godiyal is also in Delhi to say that it was our collective responsibility and we could not deliver… Maybe it is in my destiny that in this old age, I am accused of selling tickets.”

“Harish Rawat is needed neither in Congress nor in public life. People of Uttarakhand should bury Harish Rawat in a pit… The party is also like a God to me. During Holika Dehan, the dehan of Harish Rawat should also take place. At least, his political dehan,” he added.

In the polls, the BJP won 47 seats in the 70-member House, breaking the trend of power alternating between the saffron party and the Congress. This time, the Grand Old Party won 19 seats in the hill state, with the BSP and Independents winning two seats each. Harish Rawat, who was earlier declared as the Congress candidate from the Ramnagar seat, later contested from Lalkuan, but lost to his BJP rival by a margin of over 17,000 votes. In 2017, Harish Rawat had lost from Haridwar Rural and Kichha seats.

Notably, the allegation of selling tickets against Harish Rawat has been made by his ‘friend-turned-foe’ Ranjit Rawat. Talking to indianexpress.com, Ranjit Rawat, who is said to have preferred the Ramnagar seat but was fielded from the Salt constituency, said that he made the allegation after Harish Rawat dragged his name in a Facebook post.

“The day before yesterday, he claimed that I wanted to contest from the Ramnagar seat in 2017 against the will of the party but he is lying. In 2017, he himself asked me to contest from Ramnagar as I lost in Salt in 2012. However, he changed his mind at the last minute and asked me to go to Salt. But I refused as I did not want to be treated like a football. This time again, I wanted to contest from Ramnagar, a seat I was preparing to contest for the last six years… His managers take money from people in exchange for tickets,” said Ranjit Rawat.

In a Facebook post, Harish Rawat had claimed that he wanted to contest from Ramnagar in 2017, but went to Kichha as he was told that Ranjit Rawat wanted to contest from Ramnagar. “This time, when the party decided to field me in Ramnagar, the person (Ranjit) was sent to Salt which is his obvious seat… It was the party’s decision that I contest from Ramnagar, and it was the party’s decision to change my seat to Lalkuan,” Harish Rawat said.

On Tuesday, Harish Rawat further said, “Someone said that I should not contest from Ramnagar constituency as another person had earned the right to contest from that seat… I have continuously visited Ramnagar. However, the party made a decision and I had to go to Lalkuan at the last moment. I have already apologized to the people of Lalkuan and the workers there. What more can I do? The only solution I can think of is that everyone should come together, start a fire and end the politics of Harish Rawat if that benefits Uttarakhand and the Congress.”

Responding to a question, he said that the party should respectfully ask him to leave. “When you retire someone, you give a farewell. If Uttarakhand also believes that the problem is Harish Rawat and I am hindering the development of the state, I will find another shelter. I will find something else to do,” he said.

Targeting party leaders in Uttarakhand, he said, “When I used to say that the election is being contested under my leadership, they used to say it is being contested under collective leadership. Today, when I am taking the entire responsibility for the defeat, they are saying Harish destroyed everything. Sacrifice cannot be expected from just one person or a group.”

In a Facebook post on Sunday, hours before leaving for Delhi to attend a meeting of the Congress Working Committee, Rawat said he did not know how he would face party chief Sonia Gandhi. “How much trust she had in me. All the top leaders of the Congress had so much trust in me. All of them expected me to bring the Congress back to power. There must have been some shortcoming on my part because of which I could not meet their expectations,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sonia Gandhi has asked party presidents of states where polls were recently held to put in their resignation in order to facilitate the reorganization of state Pradesh Congress Committees.