Congress defectors headline BJP’s first Uttarakhand list

DEHRADUN

: The BJP's first list of 59 candidates for the Uttarakhand assembly elections has included some prominent leaders who recently defected from the Congress.

Sarita Arya, the former women's cell chief of Uttarakhand Congress, has been fielded from the Nainital seat. She left Congress earlier this week after being denied a poll ticket by the opposition party.

Similarly, Durgeshwar Lal, who joined the BJP on Thursday, hours before the party released its first list, has been given a ticket from Purola assembly seat. This has come as a major setback for incumbent Purola MLA Rajkumar, who left Congress in September last year to join the saffron party.

Ram Singh Kaira, who also switched his loyalty from Congress to BJP last year, has been fielded from Bhimtal. Meanwhile, Pritam Singh Panwar, an Independent MLA who joined BJP in 2021, has been given the party ticket from his Dhanaulti constituency.

For the Yamkeshwar seat, BJP has decided to replace sitting MLA Ritu Khanduri, daughter of former state chief minister BC Khanduri, with Renu Bisht, who joined the party last year after leaving Congress. Requesting anonymity, a senior BJP leader said that the party was forced to change the candidate in Yamkeshwar to mitigate anti-incumbency against the sitting MLA.

Besides Ritu Khanduri, BJP has dropped nine other sitting MLAs from its first list. The most prominent among them is Khanpur MLA Kunwar Pranav Singh ‘Champion’, who was expelled from the BJP for a while in 2019 after his gun-brandishing video went viral. This time, the party has fielded his wife, Kunwarani Devyani Singh, from Khanpur.

The party has also dropped Dwarahat MLA Mahesh Negi, who has been accused of rape, from its first list. He has been replaced by Anil Shahi. Also, Kashipur MLA Harbhajan Singh Cheema has been replaced by his son Trilok Singh Cheema.

Other sitting MLAs who failed to secure a party ticket this time are Munni Devi from Tharali, Surendra Singh Negi from Karnaprayag, Mukesh Singh Koli from Pauri, Meena Gangola from Gangolihat, Balwant Singh Bhauyal from Kapkot and Raghunath Singh Chauhan from Almora.

While the BJP is yet to announce names for 11 assembly seats, it is already known that the party would select two new faces for Kotdwar and Doiwala seats as the incumbent Kotdwar MLA Harak Singh Rawat has been expelled from the BJP for anti-party activities, and Doiwala MLA and former CM Trivendra Singh Rawat has announced that he won’t contest assembly polls this time. The BJP had won 57 out of 70 assembly seats in Uttarakhand in 2017.