Even as the Congress High Command was struggling to announce its candidates’ names for the five Parliamentary constituencies in Uttarakhand, the party’s State spokesman Dhirendra Pratap has once again sought a ticket to contest from the Garhwal seat.

He met the Uttarakhand PCC president Yashpal Arya in Delhi and later informed that if he was fielded by the Congress from Garhwal he would be able to defeat BJP candidate and former Chief Minister Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri. It is pertinent to mention that the Congress had earlier considered former MP Satpal Maharaj as the most likely party candidate from Garhwal seat before he joined the BJP.

Pratap also had recently shot-off a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi seeking the chance to contest from Garhwal on the party ticket. He has also met Chief Minister Harish Rawat and PCC chief Yashpal Arya seeking the party ticket.

He claimed that the Congress state disciplinary committee chairman Narendra Singh Bhandari, State general secretary Vijay Saraswat, Pauri district Congress head GS Rawat and Rudraprayag district head Vinod Bhatt have supported his candidature from Garhwal.

Reacting to the BJP’s poser over the delay in declaring Congress candidates from the five Parliamentary seats in Uttarakhand, Pratap said that the BJP had declared its candidate even before the Congress during 2009 elections, but that it didn’t help the party.

He said that the Congress had accorded high priority to its election manifesto over the declaration of candidates and added that the party would declare its candidates in the next couple of days and that these candidates would win the election by a margin greater than the previous elections.

Reacting to the BJP’s candidate from Haridwar parliamentary seat Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ challenging Chief Minister Harish Rawat to contest from Haridwar, Pratap said that Nishank should recall that he had been ousted from his home area Thalisain by comparatively new Congress leader Ganesh Godiyal.

He added that former CM Vijay Bahuguna had met the Congress president on the weekend apart from which the CM and Arya had held several rounds of talks with him. Citing this, he said that there was no difference of opinion in the party.

It is worth mentioning here that though Bahuguna has refused to either contest himself or field his son Saket Bahuguna from Tehri constituency, sources inform that he is likely to be fielded by the party from Tehri.