Monday, 16 May 2022 | PNS | Dehradun
The senior leader of Uttarakhand Congress and the leader of the opposition (LoP) in the State Assembly Yashpal Arya found mention in the speech of former president of Congress party Rahul Gandhi on the last day of the Nav Sankalp Chintan Shivir in Udaipur on Sunday. Gandhi took the name of Arya while he was delving into what he said was a candid and open conversation which took place between the leaders of the party in the Shivir. He said that no other party in the country tolerates such a conversation within its ranks. Gandhi said that Yashpal Arya who returned back to Congress party after joining BJP told him that as a Dalit he was humiliated in the BJP and was feeling stifiled. He asserted that the conversation is in the DNA of the Congress party and regretted that the politics of the country does not entail expression of feeling and conversation now.
It is pertinent to mention here that Yashpal Arya left the Congress party in the year 2017 just ahead of the assembly elections in Uttarakhand. The BJP gave him and his son Sanjeev Arya the party tickets in the assembly elections. In the elections both Arya and his son won from their seats and Yashpal Arya was made the cabinet minister. However he left the BJP this year and came back to the Congress party. In the assembly elections he won from his seat Bajpur but his son Sanjeev Arya was defeated by Sarita Arya of BJP from Nainital assembly seat. Yashpal Arya was made the LoP by the Congress party after it was able to win only 19 seats in the assembly of 70.
