Kishore Upadhyaya appointed new Pradesh Congress committee chief in Uttarakhand

DEHRADUN: Kishore Upadhyaya has been appointed as the new President of Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress committee.

The announcement was made by senior party leader Janardhan Dwivedi in New Delhi last night, PCC spokesman Dhirendra Pratap said today.

Upadhyaya takes over from Yashpal Arya who resigned in November last year but had been asked by the party high command to continue in the post till a replacement is found.

After Congress' rout in the Lok Sabha polls in which it lost all five seats to the BJP in Uttarakhand, it was almost certain that the central leadership will soon hand over the responsibility of running the party in the hill state to someone else.

Upadhyaya's appointment to the post is being seen in political circles here as Congress high command's attempt to strike a balance in regional and caste equations in the state.

Upadhyaya is a Brahmin leader from Garhwal whereas Chief Minister Harish Rawat is a Kshatriya leader from Kumaon.

A former MLA and minister, Upadhyaya's appointment to the post is being attributed by political observers here to his proximity to Chief Minister Harish Rawat.