By Shishir Prashant 
PrashantNews
After four years of long wait, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Friday finally expanded his cabinet inducting five new faces.
But out of the five new faces, three Ministers – Pradip Batra, Bharat Singh Chaudhary and Ram Singh Kaira have come to the ruling BJP fold from Congress.
With the today’s expansion, the total strength of the Ministers with Congress background in the Dhami Cabinet has gone up to Seven now. The total strength of the Cabinet including the CM is now 12. “The BJP is quintessential part of Congress party now as seven of its total 11 Ministers have come from Congress,” alleged Karan Mahra, former state Congress President.
The other four Cabinet Ministers who joined BJP after the infamous 2016 political revolt are Subodh Uniyal, Rekha Arya, Satpal Maharaj and Saurabh Bahuguna. Junior Bahuguna became Cabinet Minister largely because he is son of former Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna, who too joined BJP after the revolt.
Uttarakhand Congress chief Ganesh Godiyal sarcastically congratulated Dhami for accommodating three new ministers of Congress background in the cabinet. “It is evident that leaders with Congress background have been accorded prominence in this cabinet expansion. Such faces already constituted a significant proportion of the cabinet,” Godiyal alleged.
“This is also being interpreted as a clear message to BJP workers: that priority is being given to leaders who have joined from other parties, while those who have served the party faithfully for a long time are still waiting for their turn,” Godiyal claimed further.
“This cabinet expansion—undertaken for a duration of merely 8 to 9 months—appears to be not in the interest of the public, but rather a mere attempt to cover up the BJP’s internal discord,” Godiyal claimed.