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The change was made around a month after she and her father-in-law were summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to attend for questioning regarding a purported forest fraud.
The change was made around a month after she and her father-in-law were summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to attend for questioning regarding a purported forest fraud.
Anukriti announced her departure from the party due to personal circumstances in a letter to Congress state president Karan Mahara. She stated in the letter that was uploaded to her Instagram account, “Today, on March 16, I am submitting my resignation from the primary membership of the All India National Congress party due to some personal reasons.”
In February, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) issued summonses to Harak Singh Rawat, a former state forest minister and prominent Congress leader, and Anukriti, his daughter-in-law, calling them in for questioning. This move by the ED came in the wake of extensive search operations carried out on February 7 across 17 locations spanning Uttarakhand, New Delhi, and Haryana. These operations were conducted under the purview of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, and were directly associated with an alleged forest scam case that had garnered significant attention and concern.
The summonses served to both Harak Singh Rawat and Anukriti underscored the seriousness with which the ED was approaching the investigation into the purported forest scam. The simultaneous search operations conducted at multiple locations hinted at the magnitude of the probe and its potential ramifications.
Given his prior political prominence and influence, Harak Singh Rawat’s involvement in the case as the previous state forest minister adds levels of significance. Similarly, Anukriti’s summons suggested that the probe might have included those who were connected to the political figures as well as themselves.
Harak Singh Rawat’s role in the case as the former state forest minister adds layers of significance, given his previous political prominence and influence. In a similar vein, Anukriti’s summons implied that individuals with ties to the political figures may have also been included in the investigation.
The accusations made against Rawat concern alleged violations of the law that include multiple tree fellings, financial irregularities, and unpermitted building in the Corbett National Park’s Pakhro Tiger Reserve area in 2019. Interestingly, when he was the forest minister in the last BJP government, Rawat, who was once a member of the BJP, was a strong supporter of the expansion of the Pakhro Tiger Reserve.
Rawat has switched parties a lot during his political career. He was first elected as a Pauri BJP MLA in 1991, and in the Kalyan Singh administration in undivided Uttar Pradesh, he held the position of youngest minister. After losing out on a BSP ticket, he later sided with the BSP before entering the Congress in 1998. After winning the Lansdowne MLA elections in 2002 and 2007, Rawat went on to lead the opposition in Uttarakhand from 2007 to 2012.
After Vijay Bahuguna defeated Rawat in the 2012 chief ministerial election, the former was admitted into the Cabinet. He was one of the nine rebel Congress lawmakers who, after the denial of additional ministries, such as PWD and Power, sided with the BJP against then-CM Harish Rawat in an attempt to topple the government in 2016.
However, for disciplinary reasons, Harak Singh Rawat was removed from the Uttarakhand BJP in January 2022 and banned from the party for six years. Soon after, he and his daughter-in-law, Anukriti Gusain, joined the Congress.
Anukriti, who is well-known for her involvement in beauty pageants, entered the political sphere in the 2022 Vidhan Sabha elections after finishing as the fourth runner-up in the Miss India Asia Pacific World 2014 pageant and represented India in the Miss Grand International competition in 2017. She entered the race, but Daleep Singh Rawat, the sitting BJP MLA and the son of prominent party leader Bharat Singh Rawat, defeated her.
