The contest in the Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar constituency is mainly between the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Ajay Bhatt and Congress candidate Harish Rawat.
While Bhatt was declared the candidate without any noticeable opposition from within the party, Rawat had to face internal opposition before being finalised as the Congress candidate from this constituency. Due to Bhatt and Rawat in the fray, this constituency has become a hot-seat.
One of the interesting aspects of this election is that Bhatt is contesting against Rawat who is also related to senior Congress leader, Late Govind Singh Mahra from the Ranikhet Vidhan Sabha constituency. In the past Bhatt has contested the assembly election against Mahra’s sons Puran Singh Mahra and Karan Mahra from Ranikhet. The two Mahras are brothers in-law of Rawat. Bhatt has defeated members of the Mahra family thrice in the past though he lost the last assembly election from Ranikhet. While Bhatt was heading the BJP State unit when the party achieved victory from 57 out of 70 assembly seats in the State, former chief minister and AICC general secretary Rawat is also a tall political leader. In the past, Rawat has been elected MP thrice from the Almora-Pithoragarh constituency and once from the Haridwar constituency. On the other hand, Bhatt has been elected MLA thrice from the Ranikhet constituency. Rawat has put in all effort to support Mahra family members whenever they contested the election. Now that he is contesting from a constituency where they are considered to be influential, it remains to be seen what Mahra family will do to boost Rawat’s chances of victory.
Another fact is that both the BJP and Congress candidates are natives of Almora district. This constituency is currently represented by Bhagat Singh Koshyari of the BJP who had earlier expressed his lack of interest in contesting. While there has been no opposition to Bhatt from within the party though there were various contenders for the ticket, Rawat had to face internal opposition even before his candidature was finalised by the Congress central election committee.
Observers point out that Rawat will have to tackle not only the challenge posed by the BJP candidate but also handle internal opposition. The leader of opposition in the Vidhan Sabha, Indira Hridayesh, former MP KC Singh Baba and ticket contender Mahendra Pal were reportedly against Rawat being fielded from the Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar constituency. Though Rawat is a veteran politician, he faces dual challenges. On the other hand, Bhatt hopes to secure a victory considering there are 11 BJP MLAs and two mayors in this parliamentary constituency. The Congress is looking towards its traditional support base and party workers to win the election. While the BJP has maintained a united front so far, it remains to be seen how the internal tension in the Congress is handled in the coming days.