Just a couple of hours before the deadline for filing the nomination papers for mayoral post, BJP has disclosed the final list for mayoral posts of all three remaining municipal corporations in Garhwal division of Uttarakhand.
After having rounds of dialogues with every fraction of the party, the party has managed to convince rebels with a hope to emerge victorious.
The members participated in the Parliamentary Board (Election Committee) meeting held at state party office in Dehradun on Friday that lasted for nearly three hours. After receiving feedback from every section of the party, the Committee finally issued the final list for the post of mayoral. The party gave ticket to current Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) mayor, Vinod Chamoli. Additionally, the party has fielded Manoj Garg at Municipal Corporation of Haridwar and Mahender Kala at Municipal Corporation of Roorkee.
Among all three municipal corporations, the MCD has become a hottest seat as senior BJP leader, Anil Goyal was also in the fray for this post but somehow, veteran party leaders managed to convince him to withdraw his candidature. Meanwhile, it is not wrong to quote that the party has decided to give ticket to only those candidates, who can emerge victorious in the local bodies election. Party sources said that the party has also repeated the candidatures whereas some candidates are close relatives of current councilors.
In an exclusive interaction with The Pioneer, Tirath Singh Rawat, State BJP Chief, said that committee was formed for the selection of the best suitable candidates for the posts of mayor and councilors in the municipal corporations and municipal council.
“Bacchi Singh Rawat, MK Dhyani, Balraj Passi, Dr DS Rawat, Naresh Bansal and BS Chufal were the heads of Dehradun, Haridwar, Roorkee, Kashipur and Haldwani zonals respectively,” he said, adding after only those candidates were given ticket who are fit in the party criteria frame.
He claimed that all sections of the party, who were denied tickets on different grounds would surely stand in the favour of candidates. Interestingly, the party has equally considered youth, women and blood relation criteria while finalizing the names of the candidates. Interestingly, out of three municipal corporations in the Kumaon division, two were women contenders. The party has fielded Soni Kohli at Rudrapur Municipal Corporation and Shiksha Chowdhury at Kashipur Municipal Corporation.
Additionally, the list of councilors in the MCD clearly highlighted that 18 councilors were repeated by the party whereas out of 60 posts, 26 are women candidates across the capital city.