Ahead of Uttarakhand Assembly elections, Colonel (retd) Vijay Rawat, brother of India’s late Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat, on Wednesday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Delhi in the presence of Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and other senior party functionaries.

The development comes hours after the retired colonel met the Uttarakhand Chief Minister in Delhi, and triggered a buzz over him joining the saffron camp ahead of the upcoming Assembly polls in the hill state.

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Earlier, the retired colonel met the Uttarakhand CM, following which he said, “I like his (Dhami’s) vision for the state. It matches with what my brother (the late CDS) had in his mind.”

When asked about his joining the saffron camp, he had said, “In case they ask me, I will serve the people of Uttarakhand,” Hindustan Times reported the retired colonel as saying.

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The Uttarakhand chief minister, too, took to his personal handle on Twitter to salute the service to the nation done by the Rawat family.

“Today in Delhi, met Col. Vijay Rawat ji, brother of the first CDS of the country and the pride of Uttarakhand Late Bipin Rawat ji,” wrote Dhami on Twitter. “We salute the service to the nation done by Bipin Rawat ji and his family. I will always work to transform Uttarakhand according to their dreams,” he added.

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Former CDS chief Bipin Rawat, who hailed from Pauri Garhwa, Uttarakhand, died in a helicopter crash near Coonoor, Tamil Nadu on December 8 along with 13 others and his wife Madhulika.

In the days following his death, it was revealed that the four-star general of the Indian Army had a bunch of unfulfilled plans in service to the nation, including the setting up of more than a few ‘sainik schools’ across India to help underprivileged students prepare themselves for the armed forces.

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Uttarakhand Assembly elections will be held on February 14, the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced on Saturday, January 8. Polling will be held in a single phase and votes will be counted on March 10.

The term of the current Uttarakhand Assembly is slated to end on March 23, 2022.