22 Congress MLAs from Uttarakhand support Vijay Bahuguna

DEHRADUN: A majority of Congress MLAs in Uttarakhand assembly is understood to be disfavouring replacing Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna. Twenty-two out of a total of 33 Congress MLAs have written to the party central leadership reposing their faith in Bahuguna, a top Congress leader here said requesting anonymity.

The letter submitted to the central leadership of the party a couple of days ago bears the signatures of 22 party MLAs, they said. The principal argument of Bahuguna backers is that there are no corruption charges against him and it would not be appropriate to rock the boat ahead of coming panchayat elections also being viewed as a dry run to 2014 Lok Sabha polls, said the leader.

"When there's no charge of graft or non-governance against Bahuguna, why remove him and destabilise things in the state ahead of the panchayat polls"? he argued. The MLAs declaring support for Bahuguna have also said that he has faced opposition from time to time only from Union Minister Harish Rawat who has long been nursing the ambition of becoming the chief minister of Uttarakhand.