Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi's “mission inner-party democracy of involving youth” has suffered a setback with the Congress applying the same old candidate selection yardstick of promoting dynastic politics — like Haridwar and Tehari lok Sabha seats — in these lok Sabha elections too.
Ignoring candidatures of some other aspirants, the Congress has done an experiment with dynastic politics in the high profile Haridwar constituency by fielding Renuka Rawat wife of Chief Minister Harish Rawat.Interestingly, there were two other contenders from the same family — Chief Minister Rawat's son Anand Rawat and daughter Anupama Rawat.
However, according to party insiders here even Chief Minister Rawat — who is the sitting MP from Haridwar parliamentary constituency — is not a sure of feilding either his wife Renuka Rawat, son Anand Rawat or daughter Anupama Rawat from his seat against BJP's Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank.
As far as the Tehari lok Sabha seat is considered, Rahul Gandhi's youth formula has nothing to do with fielding Saket Bahuguna — son of fromer Chief Minister of Uttarakhand Vijay Bahuguna — as party's youth candidate from Tehari. Altough Bahuguna wished that it worked in Saket's favour.
Meanwhile, after sudden exit of Satpal Maharaj, the sitting MP from Pauri, it seems that the Congress did not even think to bring in the young faces from that seat.lt Gen GS Negi (retd) from Pauri lok Sabha seat was earlier chosen but selection of State Cabinet Minister Harak Singh Rawat proves the point further.
It is not true that the Congress did not have many options to bring in some new faces. But it was the same self promotional politics that played a spoilsport to do experiment with Rahul Gandhi's tryst with youth formula that led to unexpected delay in selection of candidates for all the five seats in Uttarakhand.
There were many factors that ruined Rahul Gandhi's idea of strengthening inner-party democracy through promoting participation of youth in electoral politics.There were some other names doing the rounds for the Almora-Pithoragarh lok Sabha seat. But CM Harish Rawat is reported to be instrumental in bringing Pradeep Tamta again from the aforesaid lS seat which is a reserved constituency.
Similarly, the Congress Party did also have a few options to give opportunity to some young candidates like Prakash Joshi from Nainital, Udham Singh Nagar lok Sabha seat. But the ruling party thought it better to file the incumbent KC Singh Baba.
Notably, Prakash Joshi who has worked with the youth Congress is also considered to be a close aide of Rahul.More importantly, Prakash had also been party candidate from Kaladhungi Assembly constituency in 2012 Assembly elections, though he lost that election to BJP's Banshidhar Bhagat.Yet Rahul Gandhi's efforts to strengthen inner-party democracy were overlooked here too, showing faith in incumbent KC Singh Baba.