Rebels bank on courts as Cong says negotiations off the table

The nine Congress rebel legislators who precipitated the crisis are unwilling to join the BJP and looking at having their own political outfit.

Most of the rebel legislators HT spoke to on Friday, a day before their petition challenging their disqualification will be heard by Uttarakhand high court, said they will go for appeals in case the ruling does not go in their favour.

“We will pursue our issue till we get justice. The case is pending before Justice UC Dhyani bench and we are hopeful the decision will come in our favour”, Harak Singh Rawat, who with former chief minister Vijay Bahuguna engineered the split, told HT on Friday.

Rebel holds key for the floor test. If disqualified, Rawat may not face difficulty in winning the vote as he has support of six

HARAK SINGH RAWAT SAID HIS GROUP WILL GO TO A HIGHER BENCH IF THEIR DISQUALIFICATION WAS NOT STRUCK DOWN

PDF legislators. If the rebels are allowed to vote, Rawat can lose and BJP will get a chance to form the government.

The MLA, who was earlier with the BJP, was quick to add that if the decision does not comes in their favour, than they will knock the doors of the division bench of the high court.

It appears that the rebels have little options left as the Congress has closed doors saying it cannot meet their demand for replacing Harish Rawat with some other leader.

“We are no more in touch with rebels. It is not possible for us to accept rebels demand (to remove Harish Rawat as CM candidate)” told Upadhyay to HT on Friday. Earlier, Rawat was in touch with some of them.

Although the BJP will not mind rebels supporting the party leading, many of the rebels are not keen considering that toppling of the Rawat government has not gone down well with voters.

Many in the group believe they should form a separate party and decided on the vote independently but the decision on the same would be taken only after the court settles the issue of their disqualification, one of the legislators said.

Most of the rebels are either in Dehradun or their respective constituencies unlike the last time when the court ordered trust vote that they moved to Rajasthan. Bahuguna is in Delhi and is coordinating with top BJP leaders.