Veteran ND Tiwari’s public overtures in the foothills of his hometown in Nainital nowadays that have always made him cut from the rest of his contemporaries, have not gone down well among the Congressmen in a charged election environment here.
The interesting fact is that his dialogue with his people in local dialect and singing popular folk songs reminiscing his old golden days when Tiwari was at his peak of political career, only make the people feel that he is from among them. So this ability of the senior Congressman to connect with the electorate has always been other politicians’ envy.
Apart from his special appeal to woo the voters, as a practical man Tiwari never forgets to talk about development. Among other things including introduction of various popular programmes during his tenure as Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, establishment of HMT unit at Kathgodam and promoting industrialisation in agriculture oriented State like Uttarakhand to name a few only come as a reaffirmation of why Tiwari had got the title of ‘Vikas Purush’ to his credit.
People don’t hesitate to remember his contribution to the development of this region. The former Chief Minister of Uttarakhand and senior Congressman is nowadays on a tour of this Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar lok Sabha constituency along with his son Rohit Shekhar and his mother Ujjwala Sharma to gauge the mood of the voters of this Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar parliamentary constituency.
The Congress party leaders particularly those who are in the race of party ticket from this lok Sabha seat and their supporters are quite apprehensive about Tiwari’s public engagement here nowadays. They are of the view that in case Tiwari offers his candidature from this seat, this may only weaken Congress’ winning prospects.
So, apart from his mass appeal, Tiwari has advantage of fighting the election on his own even if the party hesitates to field him as its candidate from the Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar parliamentary seat, maintain Tiwari supporters here.
It may be recalled that Tiwari had represented this seat thrice in the past ie. in 1980, 1996 and 1999. Currently, the ruling Congress party is representing this Nainital -Udham Singh Nagar seat for the past two consecutive terms i.e. since 2004.
Whereas the incumbent party is trying hard to retain the aforesaid lok Sabha seat which is considered as pocket borough of the Congress, the BJP which is on its 272 plus mission is also trying to leave no stone unturned to win the same seat. With the main fight going to be between the Congress and the BJP in this seat as the
present political equations here suggest, if veteran Tiwari also throws his hat in the ring, it would be interesting to see in whose hands the Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar parliamentary seat will go.