Srinagar mayor Aarti Bhandari, 10 councillors join BJP in Uttarakhand

Uttarakhand’s only independent mayor, from Srinagar, Aarti Bhandari, along with ten councillors, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday.

BJP state president and Rajya Sabha lawmaker Mahendra Bhatt and cabinet minister Dhan Singh Rawat welcomed the new entrants, which included two Congress councillors from Srinagar, at a function at the party’s state headquarters in Dehradun.

“The arrival of the mayor and 10 councillors has infused new energy into the party,” Bhatt said, adding that the BJP would now work with renewed strength to secure a decisive victory in the 2027 assembly elections.

With Bhandari joining the BJP, the party now has mayors in 11 municipal corporations in the state. The party’s mayoral presence across all 11 municipal corporations would strengthen coordination between the government and local bodies, Bhatt said.

“Grateful to the BJP’s state leadership and Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami for welcoming her into the party,” Bhandari said, adding that her “ideological alignment with the BJP had remained intact despite contesting the municipal elections independently due to circumstances at the time.”

Aarti’s husband and senior leader Lakhpat Bhandari, who also joined the BJP on Wednesday, said that several people tried to persuade him to join other political parties, but he had remained committed to the political ideology with which he was associated.

Rawat said Srinagar would now benefit from a “triple-engine” government, referring to coordination between the Centre, state government and municipal corporation.

He added that a major membership drive would soon be organised in Srinagar and announced that, as per the party’s target, around 1,000 people would be inducted into the BJP in the Srinagar assembly constituency.

Highlighting development projects in Srinagar, Rawat said that the government had already launched a ₹72 crore scheme aimed at providing round-the-clock water supply to the municipal area.