Congress leaders of Uttarakhand including Harish Rawat meeting held AICC office chaired by Kumari Shelja to decide on Haridwar and Nainital seats , fingers crossed !

The Uttarakhand Congress seems to be in real mess as the high command is finding it extremely difficult to declare its candidates on Haridwar and Nainital seats especially when its rival party BJP has already declared its candidates on all five seats and are already on frantic internal campaigning mode. Today, the central incharge and observer of Uttarakhand Congress Kumari Shelja held a high level meeting with former Uttarakhand chief minister and CWC member Harish Rawat, attending it for the first time. The meeting is being held at the party headquarter 24 Akbar Road and the leaders present were Harish Rawat, Congress Uttarakhand chief Karan Mahara , leader of the CEC Pritam Singh n leader of opposition in Uttarakhand assembly Yashpal Arya. A Central Election Committee meeting has already been held in Delhi earlier and it could declare only three candidates on Pauri Garhwal, Tehri Garhwal and Almora ( Reserve seats) namely Ganesh Godiyal, Mr.Gunsola and Pradeep Tamta. Several important leaders including the former party chief Sonia Gandhi had also participated in this meeting. Several efforts were made asking Harish Rawat to contest from Haridwar or Nainital as he had earlier contested from both the parliamentary seats though lost with a huge margin. According to sources former CM Harish Rawat sensing defeat cited health reasons not to contest but asked ticket for his son Virendra Rawat who had been the chief of Uttarakhand Youth Congress earlier. Rawat said that if his son gets the party ticket he will leave no stone unturned to get victory from this seat using her s contacts, experience and struggle ful background including capitalisation against the works done in Haridwar while he was MP earlier and the Uttarakhand CM. Rawat wants his son to carry forward his political legacy from Haridwar from where he had been MP earlier. Rawat’s daughter is already the lawmaker from Haridwar ( Rural) seat but being pregnant these days could contest and the party g gh command had agreed to give ticket to Rawat’s MLA daughter. Kumari Shelja wants that the candidates on Haridwar and Nainital seats are finalised at the earliest and thereafter stamped by the Central Election Committee , the highest decision making body for tickets. The crux of the matter is that the BJP has two strong heavyweights from Haridwar and Nainital seats viz Trivendra Rawat, former Uttarakhand CM and former union state minister for defence and tourism Ajay Bhatt. In the absence of powerful candidates and denial by Harish Rawat and Yashpal Arya to contest, the central high command of Congress is in a fix.