By Shishir Prashant 
PrashantNews
Keeping his political ambitions alive, senior Congress leader and former Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat on Saturday clarified that he has not resigned from the Congress, seeking to put to rest reports that he had quit the party following recent Enforcement Directorate (ED) action linked to his former OSD Chandan Singh Jeena.
Rawat said his resignation offer was limited to the organisational positions he holds in the Congress and did not amount to quitting the party.
“Congress party is in my blood and bones. Whatever Harish Rawat is today has been created by the Congress party. It will go with me even to heaven,” he said in a statement.
Rawat said he had stated that if the ED action in Dehradun and what he described as a “hypocritical spectacle” surrounding it affected the Congress’ narrative of fighting corruption, he would like to resign from the party posts held by him.
These include membership of the Pradesh Congress Committee and the All India Congress Committee’s Working Committee, he said.
His clarification is politically significant as it makes clear that Rawat remains firmly within the Congress ahead of the Uttarakhand Assembly elections due early next year. It also keeps alive his longstanding political claim and ambitions to lead the state if the Congress succeeds in coming to power.
The Congress has not officially projected a chief ministerial face for the 2027 polls, and the party’s decision on leadership would be taken at an appropriate stage. Rawat, however, remains one of its most prominent leaders in Uttarakhand and has served as chief minister from 2014 to 2017.
Urging the media to read his earlier social media post “in its entirety”, Rawat asked journalists and news organisations to correct reports suggesting that he had resigned from the Congress itself.
The clarification effectively draws a distinction between stepping away from party positions as a mark of protest and severing ties with the Congress—a distinction that could assume considerable importance as the party prepares for the 2027 electoral battle in the state.