Haridwar Parliamentary seat has become a prestige issue for Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat. He has been putting all efforts to lure BJP MlA Madan Kaushik, who has been annoyed since denial of BJP ticket from Haridwar seat. If Kaushik joins the Congress then he may give a tough fight to the present BJP candidate Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and CM Rawat would get an Assembly seat without disturbing the current status of the Congress MlAs in the State Vidhan Sabha.
More so, Haridwar is being represented by CM Harish Rawat, he will use all permutations and combinations to regain the seat otherwise his opponent would get active after general election-2014.
Meanwhile, RSS leaders have open all network to defuse the crisis.
Since inception as CM of Uttarakhand million dollar question is being asked by everyone that who would be CM Rawat’s successor in Haridwar lok Sabha seatIJ Currently CM Rawat’s son Anand Rawat and daughter Anupama Rawat have been fighting with each other to grab the seat. Talking to The Pioneer, CM Rawat has categorically said that he would try to field local Congress leader from Haridwar seat if party fails to find appropriate candidate then he would field candidate from his own family.
Political analysts said that as CM Rawat will have to contest Assembly bypoll before August 1, 2014 because currently he is an MP. Due to this reason the CM is desperately looking for safer seat within Haridwar lok Sabha constituency. In this perspective if MlA Kaushik, who represents Haridwar Assembly seat and having good holds in Haridwar district consist of 11 out of 14 Assembly constituencies of Haridwar lok Sabha seat, joins Congress then contest between Congress and BJP would become more interesting. By winning Haridwar lok Sabha seat Rawat would crush his opposition and will get a Assembly seat as well. With this equation he would increase Congress number ie 33 to 34 out of 70 member of State Vidhan Sabha.
Realising this BJP leaders including State BJP in-charge Radha Mohan Singh along with other senior leaders have become active to placate Kaushik. Talking to The Pioneer a BJP leader said that Kaushik is one of senior leaders in the State so he would not join Congress. To ascertain his claim he said that if he joins then Kaushik will have to resign from Assembly as well and there is no surety that he would win lok Sabha election. There are several instances when BJP MlAs left BJP including Munna Singh Chouhan from Vikasnagar, Rajkumar from Sahaspur and Matbar Singh Kandari but currently they have lost their clout as well. Sources further said that RSS workers are also in touch with Kaushik.
Talking to The Pioneer Kaushik said he was annoyed because he was expecting ticket this year. In 2009, the party had fielded him and later withdrawn with few assurances. Now again he was denied a ticket.
However, he outrightly rejected all the rumours about joining the Congress.