BJP demands Harish Rawat's resignation on moral grounds     

Dehradun, May 17: BJP, which swept all the five Lok Sabha seats in

, on Saturday asked Chief Minister

to resign owning moral responsibility for the Congress' rout in the state.

"With the Congress totally demolished in Uttarakhand, the chief minister has no moral authority to continue in office.I demand that he should resign on moral grounds," Pradesh BJP President Tirath Singh Rawat told reporters here.

He said the chief minister should draw inspiration from former BJP CM Bhuvan Chandra Khanduri, who had resigned after BJP lost 0-5 to the Congress in 2009 general elections.

Congress, which had won all the five seats of Uttarakhand in 2009 general elections, lost all of them to BJP yesterday.

Accusing Harish Rawat of having failed to effect a change in the Congress' electoral fortunes in the hill state, he said the chief minister could not pull people out of the despair caused by the slipshod handling of the aftermath of last year's natural calamity by his predecessor Vijay Bahuguna.

Tirath: People were fed up with extreme corruption

"Roads on chardham yatra route are still in terrible shape. The administration is asking people not to visit the Himalayan shrines in these conditions but the chief minister is encouraging them to come. This could be risky," Tirath said.

He said the massive mandate in favour of the BJP countrywide reflected the aspirations of the people who wanted Narendra Modi to provide a strong leadership at the Centre. "People were fed up with extreme corruption, price rise and years of Congress misrule and saw a ray of hope in Modi. It is the Modi magic which has spurred the BJP to such stupendous victory," he said.

Holding that the chief minister was feeling "insecure" about the "durability" of his tenure, he said it was because of this sense of "insecurity" that he had suddenly elevated seven of his MLAs to the post of parliamentary secretary just a day ahead of counting.

"The timing of the decision (one day before the poll verdict was out) clearly shows it was a move to keep his flock together," the BJP leader said.

PTI