India, Oct. 16 -- Dushyant Gautam's appointment as the governor of Sikkim has caused ripples in poll-bound Uttarakhand, where the Congress has trained its guns at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, alleging it is trying to "shield" the leader whose name cropped up in the 19-year-old Anika Bhandari's murder case in 2022.

On Thursday, while the BJP leadership backed Gautam, asserting there was no evidence against him, several leaders in the state expressed concern that the issue could cast a shadow on the party's election campaign.

Uttarakhand goes to the polls early next year, and the BJP has been in power since 2017.

The BJP has officially maintained that there is no evidence against Gautam, a Dalit face of the BJP who was a Rajya Sabh...