Surprising as it may appear that Uttarakhand, the land where joining armed forces is more like a family tradition and which has substantial population of armed forces personnel, ex servicemen and Veer Naris, the major political parties have refrained from fielding any candidate with armed forces background in the ensuing Lok Sabha elections.
According to a rough estimate there are more than 170000 ex servicemen and Veer Naris (widows of armed forces personnel) voters in Uttarakhand. Similarly the number of serving armed forces personnel is estimated at 2 lakh which means that there are at least 15 lakh voters in the state which belong to the families with armed forces background.
Understanding this, both Congress and BJP along with other political forces had in past fielded armed forces veterans in the electoral battle of Uttarakhand.
This time however no political party has given ticket to ex servicemen. It was widely believed that BJP in an attempt to strike chord with families with army and paramilitary background after the Pulwama incident and the unprecedented punitive aerial strikes by Indian Air Forces fighter planes deep inside Pakistan territory to neutralise terrorists would field someone with army background from Garhwal Lok Sabha to cash on the wave of nationalism sweeping across the country.
However, the saffron party reposed faith in an old timer like Teerath Singh Rawat from this constituency which has a sizeable population of ex servicemen and Veer Naris. Congress, however seized the initiative from BJP by roping in Manish Khanduri the son of the Major General B C Khanduri ( retd) in order to cash the popularity of the senior Khanduri but even it did not fielded any ex servicemen from any constituency.
The experiment of fielding a retired army officer from Garhwal was first of all done by BJP in the year 1991 when Maj Gen (retd) Khanduri contested as its nominee.
This constituency till then was considered as a citadel of Congress party.
The experiment of BJP proved successful as Khanduri won from here and represented the constituency a record five times.
The congress too played this card when it fielded Lieutenant General (retd) TPS Rawat from Dhumakot assembly constituency in the year 2002.
The general was made a minister in Congress government and the elections of 2007 he was re –elected from Dhumakot. He however switched sides and vacated the seat for Khanduri, who then was MP from Garhwal, contested the bye election from Dhumakot and won.
Khanduri who became the Chief Minister reciprocated the gesture by fielding TPS Rawat as BJP candidate from Garhwal Lok Sabha seat vacated by him. This time around the former Principal of Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (NIM) Colonel Ajay Kothiyal (retd) and Rear Admiral OPS Rana (retd) were in contention from Garhwal seat after Khanduri was denied ticket by the BJP.
However the party decided to field Teerath Singh Rawat from here. The contest in Garhwal is now between son and the disciple of General Khanduri.