With the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party choosing to stay out of the fray, a straight fight between the Congress and the BJP appears to be on the cards for Bhagwanpur Assembly seat in Uttarakhand where a by-poll will be held on April 11.
A total of six candidates are in the fray for the by-poll to the reserved SC seat including ruling Congress’s Mamata Rakesh, BJP’s Rajpal Singh and four Independents - Gurmel, Darshana Devi Rathore, Dipak Surya and Pritam Singh.
The seat fell vacant after the death of Cabinet Minister Surendra Rakesh in February this year.
The Congress has fielded his widow Mamata Rakesh from the constituency to make the most of sympathy votes in favour of the deceased MLA who died of cancer, while the BJP has nominated a relative greenhorn Rajpal Singh from the seat.
Surendra Rakesh had won the seat on a BSP ticket in 2012 Assembly elections but was later expelled by the party for alleged anti-party activities.
Winning the seat is important for the ruling Congress in Uttarakhand as it will help the party get the elusive majority figure in the State Assembly on its own.
It has 35 members of its own in the 70-member House at present and enjoys the support of the seven-member PDF of which Rakesh was a part. If the Congress wins the Bhagwanpur Assembly seat, its own tally in the House will rise to 36. - PTI
