Cong shortlists names for all 5 Lok Sabha seats in U’khand
The screening committee of All India Congress Committee (AICC) on Wednesday finalised a panel of three names each for all five Lok Sabha seats of Uttarakhand.
State Congress in-charge Kumari Selja, Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Karan Mahara and Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader Yashpal Arya took part in the meeting of the screening committee to discuss candidates for the Lok Sabha poll.
Bhakta Charan Das is the chairman and Neeraj Dangi and Yashomati Thakur are the members of the Cluster-4 screening committee to recommend candidates for Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Chandigarh, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
Mathura Dutt Joshi, state Congress vice president (organisation), said, “The screening committee has finalised a panel of three names on each seat in the state. The screening committee will forward their lists to the Congress Central Election Committee (CEC) to take a final call and announce the nominees for the Lok Sabha election.”
People aware of the matter said names of candidates shortlisted include state Congress chief Karan Mahara from Haridwar, Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the state assembly Yashpal Arya from Almora, former chief minister Harish Rawat from Haridwar, deputy leader of Opposition Bhuwan Kapri from Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar, former state Congress chief Ganesh Godiyal from Pauri Garhwal, and six time Chakrata MLA Pritam Singh from Tehri Garhwal.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has already announced its incumbents for three Lok Sabha seats in the state.
The BJP fielded sitting MPs Ajay Tamta from Almora, Ajay Bhatt from Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar and Mala Rajyalakshami Shah from Tehri
Garhwal.
Meanwhile, the party is yet to announce candidates on the two remaining seats — Haridwar and Pauri Garhwal.
Uttarakhand Congress chief spokesperson Garima Mehra Dasauni has expressed her interest to contest from Tehri Garhwal.
“Leave alone development, people of Tehri Garhwal constituency struggled to get a sight of BJP’s Mala Rajyalakshami Shah. The MP should be asked about the condition of the village she adopted. She should also be asked how much she spent from the MP development fund. She kept mum on all important issues, including people rehabilitated due to Tehri Dam construction, rape of a girl in Uttarkashi, lack of medical facilities and staff, which led to the death to a pregnant women,” Dasauni said.
BJP has expressed confidence that it will repeat its 2019 Lok Sabha election performance by securing all five seats, whereas the Congress believes that people will vote for a change this time around.
BJP state president Mahendra Bhatt said, “Our party will repeat the 2019 performance in the upcoming Lok Sabha by winning all five seats.”
Manveer Singh Chauhan, BJP state media in-charge, said, “State president Mahendra Bhatt and chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami will soon start the campaign for the Lok Sabha elections at the assembly level. Their events will be initially held in those 23 assembly seats where the party could not win in the last assembly elections.”
He said, “During these events, the party will share achievements of the central and state governments with the public, and booth and division level leaders of the opposition party will be inducted into the party.”
Congress vice president Joshi said, “People are fed up with BJP and its failures and will vote for a change in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.”
Taking a dig at the BJP candidates, State Congress chief spokesperson Garima Mehra Dasauni said, “The BJP lost half the battle of Lok Sabha elections by giving tickets to the “same worn out old faces”.
Dasauni said that the BJP MPs who were elected by the people of Almora, Tehri and Nainital in 2019 for the last five years, remained absent from their respective constituencies.
She further said they (BJP MPs) remained missing at the time of all sorts of problems faced by the people, including unemployment, inflation or crime against women.
Dasauni said an anti-incumbency wave is sweeping across the country, and it can be seen in Uttarakhand as well.