The reshuffle of the Union Council of Ministers has once again left the Congress leaders in Uttarakhand in a sullen mood. At least two senior leaders — Vijay Bahuguna, MP from Tehri Garhwal and Harish Rawat, a former party chief — were hopeful of getting into the Union Cabinet.

Rawat, who lost the race for the post of Chief Minister to N D Tiwari despite leading the party to victory in the first Assembly elections in Uttarakhand in 2002, has been waiting since then for adjustment at the Centre but has been ignored. Though he is a Rajya Sabha member, his term will come to an end by year-end.

Bahuguna, son of former UP chief minister Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna, also failed to make it. In fact, he and his sister, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, president of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee, are considered close to party president Sonia Gandhi.

The Congress has all the three Rajya Sabha seats and two out of five Lok Sabha seats in the state. Satish Sharma, Satyavrat Chaturvedi and Rawat are Rajya Sabha members while Bahuguna and K C Singh Baba are Lok Sabha MPs.

Interestingly, the ruling BJP had been highlighting that during the time of the NDA government at the Centre, Uttarakhand got more than its fair share. Maj Gen B C Khanduri (retd), Bachi Singh Rawat, Sushma Swaraj and Sangh Priya Gautam, all MPs from the state, were Union ministers besides Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, who originally hails from the hill state.

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