A total of 4,90,799 voters will vote on February 15 election for six seats up for grabs in Tehri district. Close contests are on the cards between Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress in all the seats falling in the district, given the small margins of victories marking the previous 2012 election. Meanwhile, 37 polling centres in the urban and 877 in the rural areas have been set up in the district at the behest of the district election department. The six constituencies are Ghansali (SC), Deoprayag, Narendranagar, Pratapnagar, Tehri and Dhanaulti.
While BJP has announced the names of its contestants for all the six constituencies the ruling Congress has so far come up with four names. BJP candidates are Shakti lal Shah from Ghanshali, Vinod Kandari from Devprayag, Subodh Uniyal from Narendranagar, Vijay Singh Panwar from Pratapnagar, Shan Singh Negi from Tehri and Narayan Singh Rana from Dhanaulti. Congress candidates are Bhimlal Arya from Ghanshali, Mantri Prasad Naithani from Devprayag, Himanshu Bijalwan from Narendranagar and Vikram Singh Negi from Pratapnagar. Congress is yet to spell out the candidates for Tehri and Dhanaulti.
Ghansali, the reserved constituency, has 90, 711 voters- 46344 male and 44367 female. Bhimlal Arya won the seat in 2012 Assembly elections as the BJP candidate. He secured 14,143 votes as against the Congress candidate Dhani lal Shah who secured 10560 votes. This year Arya is contesting on Congress ticket. In all, 152 polling centres have been set up in the constituency.
Devprayag has 80, 435 voters- 40907male and 39528 female. Mantri Prasad Naithani who fought as an Independent won the seat during 2012 Assembly elections, securing 12294 votes as against the BJP candidate Diwakar Bhatt who secured 10753 votes. This year, Naithani is contesting on Congress ticket. There are 139 polling centres set up in Devprayag constituency.
Narendranagar has 83435 voters-43963 male and 39472 female voters. Congress candidate Subodh Uniyal won the seat in 2012 election, defeating BJP candidate Om Gopal Rawat. While Uniyal secured 21220 votes BJP nominee managed 20819 votes. In March 2016, Uniyal turned rebel against Congress and later switched to BJP. He is contesting this time as the BJP candidate. In all, 163 polling centres have been set up in Narendranagar constituency.
Pratapnagar has 79911 voters- 40836 male and 39075 female. Vikram Singh Negi of Congress won the seat in 2012 elections, netting 12135 votes as against Vijay Singh of BJP who secured 11593 votes. There are 143 polling centres set up in Pratapnagar constituency.
Tehri has 79964 voters- 41454 male and 38506 female. Dinesh Dhanai who fought as an Independent won from the seat in 2012 elections, humbling Congress’s Kishore Upadhyay who is now the state Congress chief and had secured 11649 votes. In all, 150 polling centres have been set up in Tehri constituency.
Dhanaulti has 76343 voters- 39808 male and 36534 female. Mahavir Singh of BJP won the seat in 2012 elections, securing 12081 votes and defeated Manmohan Singh of Congress who secured 10933 votes. There are 167 polling centres set up in Dhanaulti constituency.