Colonel (retired) Ajay Kothiyal, who had been the Aam Aadmi Party's chief ministerial candidate in the Uttarakhand Assembly polls held in February, joined the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on May 24 in the presence of Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and State party president Madan Kaushik.
Col Kothiyal had resigned from the Aam Aadmi Party on May 18. The AAP had aimed big in Uttarakhand this time and fielded candidates from all the 70 Assembly seats and promised a slew of freebies to woo voters.
However, the party drew a blank in the State despite doing well in neighbouring Punjab. Its chief ministerial face Mr. Kothiyal even lost his deposit in the Gangotri constituency.
Mr. Kothiyal is said to have been not happy with the way he was being treated by the AAP post its electoral debacle in Uttarakhand.
