Dehradun, May 24 (PTI) Colonel (retired) Ajay Kothiyal, who was the Aam Aadmi Party’s chief ministerial candidate for the Uttarakhand assembly polls held in February, joined the ruling BJP on Tuesday in the presence of Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and state party president Madan Kaushik.
Kothiyal had resigned from the Aam Aadmi Party on May 18.
Former working president of the AAP’s state unit Bhoopesh Upadhyay also joined the BJP, along with Kothiyal and hundreds of their supporters.
Dhami said being the son of an armyman himself he was happy to welcome an ex-serviceman into the party.
“I always felt that Kothiyal’s nature and AAP’s ideology were not in tune with each other,” the chief minister said.
“BJP is the party for Kothiyal as it is the only party which under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is honouring soldiers,” Dhami said.
Kothiyal admitted that going to the AAP was a wrong and sentimental decision taken by him.
“Coming to BJP is like correcting a mistake mid course. There is wisdom in realising a mistake and correcting it before it is too late,” he said.
The AAP had aimed big in Uttarakhand this time and fielded candidates from all the 70 assembly seats and promised a slew of freebies to woo voters.
However, the party drew a blank in the state despite doing well in neighbouring Punjab.
Its chief ministerial face Kothiyal even lost his deposit in the Gangotri constituency.
Kothiyal is said to have been not happy with the way he was being treated by the AAP post its electoral debacle in Uttarakhand. PTI ALM SMN
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