With an announcement of candidates for six remaining seats, the Bharatiya Janata Party has outrightly rejected the speculation that former Chief Minister ND Tiwari’s son Rohit Shekhar may be given ticket from one of the constituencies of Nainital district while also according equal importance to the Garhwal and Kumaon regions of the state. Earlier they had given the duo of father Yashpal Arya and his son Sanjeev Arya ticket from Bazpur and Nainital constituencies respectively of Kumaon region and now couple Munna Singh Chouhan and his wife Madhu Chouhan have been fielded as party candidates from the Vikasnagar and Chakrata constituencies respectively from the Garhwal region. With this one thing is clear that BJP was not having candidate on 17 out of 70 assembly constituencies of the state. Due to this reason they have tried to balance the vacuum of right candidate and 13 seats, which is around 20 percent of total seats, have been given to newly entrants into the BJP.
It is known to all that the BJP often condemns opposition stating that they have been promoting politics of dynasty, while claiming that they don’t promote such politics in the BJP. In this assembly election they have given ticket to Garhwal MP and ex chief minister Maj Gen Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri’s (retd) daughter Ritu Khanduri Bhushan from Yamkeshwar constituency; senior BJP leader Vinod Kandari’s nephew Vinod Kandari from Deoprayag and senior BJP leader Rajnath Singh’s samdhi (brother in law) Narayan Singh Rana has been given ticket from Dhanaulti.
Sources said that in the distribution of tickets, the BJP has given importance to the party’s senior leaders because Rohit Shekhar was supposed to be given ticket as a honour to his father and ex chief minister Narayan Datt Tiwari but Nainita-Udham Singh Nagar MP and former chief minister Bhagat Singh Koshyari reportedly strongly objected to this and even union minister Ajay Tamta supported the MP in his opposition. By respecting their leader party high command has tried to pacify their senior leader because these leaders would canvass for the BJP candidates during election. If they would not have registered their objection to the possibility, then party might have considered the candidature of Shekhar. As is known, Koshyari had shown his hold among the masses because being a party president he had addressed three public meetings during the party’s Parivartan rally at Dehradun, Almora and Haldwani. Due to the personality of Koshyari, the BJP national president Amit Shah had seen huge public gathering there. In such circumstances it was being anticipated that party would not burn its own hand, so to say, by favouring Tiwari’s son for a party ticket in the Vidhan Sabha 2017 elections.
Vikasnagar Ex MlA Kuldeep Singh, who had won the Vikasnagar bypoll in the year 2009 after the then BJP MlA Munna Singh Chouhan had resigned from Vidhan Sabha and contested from Tehri lok Sabha constituency on BSP ticket during general election-2009, staged protest with supporters against the BJP selecting Munna Singh Chouhan as its candidate from Vikasnagar on Sunday.
Similarly in Dharmpur Vidhan Sabha constituency, there was a sort of tie between BJP city president Umesh Aggarwal and Dehradun Mayor Vinod Chamoli but party has acknowledged Chamoli and fielded him from the constituency. As is known, Chamoli’s supporters were holding round the clock bhajan at the BJP state head office and stressing that they would not stop unless and until the party gives ticket to Chamoli.
In the Chakrata Vidhan Sabha constituency, the party allotted the ticket to former Dehradun Zila Panchayat president Madhu Chouhan and given her husband and BJP state chief spokesman Munna Singh Chouhan the party ticket to contest from Vikasnagar.
In Haldwani, the party has fielded Jogendra Rautela against the Congress veteran leader and sitting MlA Indira Hridayesh. The party has even given a ticket to ex MlA Govind Singh Bisht from Ramnagar and Deewan Singh Bisht from Bhimtal. As is known, the BJP sitting MlA Dan Singh Bhandari had resigned from Vidhan Sabha a day before Rajya Sabha election-2016 so the seat was running vacant. There was speculation and rumours about the party considering the possibility of allotting the party ticket from this constituency to Tiwari’s son. Political analyst said that in Kumaon party has tried its best to keep their senior leader in confidence.