VIRENDRA RAWAT, FORMER CM’S SON FROM HARIDWAR AND PRAKASH JOSHI FROM NAINITAL ARE CONGRESS CANDIDATES !

The Congress has finally decided its two candidates on much awaited parliamentary seats of Haridwar and Nainital. The son of former CM of Uttarakhand Harish Rawat namely Virendra Rawat who had been the chief of Uttarakhand Youth Congress which is almost defunct in the state , has been given the Congress ticket whereas from Nainital the candidate is Prakash Joshi , the name never heard before.

The delay in declaring these names would infact help BJP score its brownie points among the state electorates.

According to the political analysts these two candidates of Congress are so weak and ineffective and declared so late that it’s a cake walk for BJP candidates viz former CM Trivendra Singh Rawat from Haridwar and Ajay Bhatt, sitting MP and union state minister Defence and Tourism who’ve made lots of inroads in various sections and localities of their respective constituencies in Uttarakhand having been declared quite in time.

As far as the Haridwar seat is concerned Harish Rawat had been an MP from here from 2009 to 2014. His wife had also contested from here when Rawat was the chief minister but lost to Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank. Rawat ‘s daughter Anupama Rawat is a lawmaker from Haridwar Rural having won in 2022. The party wanted Harish Rawat to contest from Haridwar but he refused on age n health grounds asking ticket for his son , finally compelling the high command to accept his demand.

The Uttarakhand Congress chief Karan Mahara congratulated both the candidates from Haridwar and Nainital and wrote on X : Many congratulations to Bhai Prakash Joshi, the candidate declared from Nainital seat of Uttarakhand and Bhai Virendra Rawat, the candidate declared from Haridwar seat, in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. I have full faith that our five Congress candidates will fight the elections strongly on issues of public interest and respect the sentiments of the common people and I pray to Lord Badrinath and Baba Kedarnath that Congress candidates will win from all the five Lok Sabha seats of Uttarakhand posted Karan Mahara on social media platform.

Today Harish Rawat has been to Narsan and Mangalore and adjoining areas of Haridwar and received tumultuous welcome by farmers and the minority community including from cross section of the people.

Harish Rawat introduced his son Virendra Rawat to the electorates and asked for their blessings . He also went to the statue of Choudhary Charan Singh and garlended his statue. Rawat had been active in his constituency and had participated in Dharna of mill workers , protests of farmers and also in favour of the demands of the local populace. His son Virendra is a political novice and Rawat want to establish him strongly in HARIDWAR so as to enable him carry his political legacy forward.

The assembly constituencies in Haridwar parliamentary constituency are : 14: Dharampur, Doiwala, Rishikesh, Haridwar, BHEL Ranipur, Jwalapur, Bhagwanpur, Jhabrera, Piran Kaliyar, Roorkee, Khanpur, Manglaur, Laksar and Haridwar Rural. This is primarily a religious , spiritual constituency but it also has about 18 -20 percent minority community votes apart from traders, farmers, working class and the backwards and Dalits also in sizable numbers. The candidates are so weak and their candidature declaration so late that they are sure to lose badly and that too with a massive margin.

Kindly recall that if a heavy weight of Congress Harish Rawat can be defeated with a huge margin of over three lakh votes from Nainital against a junior politician of BZP Ajay Bhatt then one can imagine what would be the fate of Harish Rawat’s son who has not contribution whatsoever in grass root politics of Uttarakhand or Haridwar except that he is born with a silver spoon. It seems that Haridwar has become the Harda’s family’s private limited company.

It is believed that soon there may be a split in Haridwar Congress, which is likely to have a direct impact on the election campaign. Congressmen themselves are avoiding saying anything about what Virendra Rawat will be able to do and how he will do it. In Haridwar, Trivendra Rawat from BJP, Bhavna Pandey from BSP and independent Umesh Kumar are fighting. Now it will be quite interesting how Virendra Rawat will contest the elections on the basis of his father’s name.