Uttarakhand: A day after quitting Congress, ex-CM Khanduri's son joins BJP

Dehradun, Mar 9 (PTI) BJP veteran and former Uttarakhand chief minister Bhuvan Chandra Khanduri's son Manish Khanduri on Saturday joined his father's party, a day after quitting the Congress.

Manish Khanduri joined the BJP at its city (mahanagar) office here in the presence of Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, state BJP president Mahendra Bhatt and party in-charge for Uttarakhand Dushyant Gautam.

Welcoming him to the BJP, Bhatt said Manish Khanduri's father Major General (retired) Bhuvan Chandra Khanduri's role in the development of Uttarakhand as a Union minister and the state's chief minister for two terms can never be forgotten.

"We welcome him as he has now come to his own family," the state BJP chief said. The joining comes ahead of the Lok Sabha polls expected to be held in April-May.

Manish Khanduri's elder sister Ritu Khanduri is the speaker of the Uttarakhand assembly. She is a BJP MLA from Kotdwar.

After joining the party, Khanduri said, "The BJP is the only political party that provides a platform from which one can contribute to nation building, and (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi is the only leader capable of steering the country on the path of development." Replying to a question from reporters, he said he did not come to the party for a ticket to contest elections. "I have come to serve the party as an ordinary worker," he said. Manish Khanduri resigned from the primary membership of the Congress on Friday.

He had taken the plunge into politics in 2019 by joining the Congress, which fielded him from the state's Garhwal (Pauri) Lok Sabha seat in the general elections in that year.

He lost the seat held by his father to Tirath Singh Rawat by over three lakh votes.

State Congress president Karan Mahara had said, "The party gave him full respect. It also gave him a ticket to contest the Lok Sabha polls in 2019. Many things happen. Some times there is family pressure too. His father is a senior BJP leader and sister the speaker of the Uttarakhand assembly." "But the exact cause of his resignation can be found out only when I talk to him," he had said. PTI

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