Although they played their cards close to their chest as cleverly as any aware voter does, yet it will definitely become clear on May 16 whether voters of the Nainital district’s Ramnagar assembly segment that falls in the Pauri parliamentary constituency, had also switched sides to support incumbent MP Satpal Maharaj (now BJP member) who won this seat on the Congress ticket in 2009 or decided to support his wife and Congress MlA from this seat Amrita Rawat or they had exercised their franchise applying their own discretion in these elections.
But higher voter turnout in this Ramnagar assembly constituency had also raised concerns of the contenders in this seat. The main contest in this seat is between the BJP and the Congress party.
But leaders of both the parties are not much sure whether the increased voter turnout is in favour of the ruling Congress party or against it, though the rival political parties have already said that the high voter turnout is in their favours.
However, the Pauri parliamentary constituency that attracted more attention than any other lok Sabha seat of Uttarakhand during these elections for many reasons, came again in news when Satpal Maharaj announced to desert the Congress party, declining to contest from the same Pauri lok Sabha seat to seek re-election and joined the BJP just ahead of the announcement of the names by the political parties from different parliamentary constituencies earlier this year.
The sudden exit of Maharaj came as a big blow to the Congress party. Even Chief Minister Harish Rawat had also to admit then that his bête noire Satpal Maharaj’s exit is a huge loss to the Congress party in the State.
The fact of the matter is that Satpal Maharaj managed to win the Pauri parliamentary seat in 2009 after a long gap i.e. after winning this seat in 1996. Keeping in view perhaps trust of the people of Ramnagar, Amrita Rawat also decided to contest her assembly elections in 2012 from Ramnagar assembly seat and she defeated BJP’s DS Bisht in the assembly polls of 2012 .
However, her popularity graph has constantly been on the decline in this Ramnagar assembly constituency since 2012 as the people of her constituency here time and again accused her of remaining less visible in her constituency.
Therefore, the Pauri parliamentary seat which became talk of the town for many reasons like incumbent Congress MP Satpal Maharaj’s declining to contest again from this seat and subsequently his entry to the BJP and then delay in finalisation of name of candidates by the Congress party from that seat to name a few, is going to become again centre of attraction for many as apart from the political leaders, poll pundits here are eager to know reaction of the Ramnagar assembly constituency voters to the political drama that hogged limelight for long in these elections.
It is worth mention here that among many other assembly constituencies of Nainital district and other parliamentary segments of the hill State, the Ramnagar assembly constituency also witnessed a higher voter turnout in the recently concluded lok Sabha elections. The voter turnout in the Ramnagar assembly constituency that was recorded about 59 percent in 2009 lok Sabha polls, reached 66 percent in the recently concluded parliamentary polls.