U'khand: Rahul brokers truce, Rawat to lead Cong poll campaign

New Delhi: In a damage control move, the Congress on Friday placated former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat by asking him to lead the Congress's poll campaign in the forthcoming Assembly elections in the hill state.
Though the party has not yet declared him as the official chief ministerial face of Congress, party insiders have claimed that Rawat would virtually be the face of the party for the coveted post in Uttarakhand, where Congress has an edge over the BJP in the upcoming Assembly polls. The decision in this regard was taken at a meeting senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had with Rawat and senior Congress leaders from the state, including Uttarakhand chief Ganesh Godiyal, CLP leader Pritam Singh, former state Congress chief Kishore Upadhyay,
Yashpal Arya and Rajya Sabha MP Pradeep Tamta.
All party leaders met Gandhi separately and apprised him about their views. After meeting Rahul Gandhi, they had a discussion with AICC general secretary in-charge of organisation KC Venugopal and AICC in-charge of the state Devender Yadav, where it was conveyed to the leaders that Rawat will lead the party into elections and that everyone should cooperate with him. Notably, Rawat is officially head of the campaign committee in the poll-bound state.
Talking to reporters after the meeting, Rawat said, "Life for me is kadam kadam badhaye ja, Congress ke geet gaye ja." In response to his remarks that the powers that be had "let out several crocodiles" in the "ocean of elections", Rawat said, "He was referring to those in power and their instruments like the CBI and ED."
On CM's face, he said, "The decision on the CM will be taken after the elections. Being the chairman of the campaign commi