Sonia ignores call for Uttarakhand RS nominee

DEHRADUN: About 400 elected panchayat representatives from the state met Congress president Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi on Wednesday and urged her to field a candidate from Uttarakhand for the Rajya Sabha elections.

But the delegation of panchayat representatives did not name either former chief minister Vijay Bahuguna or any other party leader from the state in this connection. Sources present at the meeting said a few persons tried to put forward a name, but she overlooked it. The panchayat representatives spent nearly an hour with Sonia but she was more keen to know about the party’s strength at grassroot level and performance of the state government.

“The Congress president humbly received all panchayat representatives and gave a patient hearing to them. She congratulated them for the massive victory in panchayat and assembly by-elections in August and September.

Rajya Sabha election nomination was not the focus of the meeting but we cannot say whether some representatives spoke about it on their own,” Dhirendra Pratap, party leader and head Uttarakhand statehood agitators council, claimed.

Meanwhile, the Rajya Sabha nomination issue took a new turn in Dehradun on Thursday when Dinesh Dhanei, state tourism minister and ruling alliance partner Progressive Democratic Front MLA, said that the Congress party must nominate someone from Delhi and not from the state. “If the Congress party thinks that Vijay Bahuguna is a better candidate than any other party leader in Delhi, it may field him as RS candidate but this will cause hurt in the organisation,” said the minister.