Tussle for BJP ticket in Uttarakhand

BJP has never won four of the 10 seats given to Congress ‘rebels’

: While there is growing resentment within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) against the 10 former Congress ‘rebels’ given tickets, the Uttarakhand BJP has hopes that by giving them these ticket, the ‘rebels’ will win four seats over which the party has never seen victory in the past Assembly elections.

“There are four seats on which we have never won and giving the tickets to the new entrants would greatly enhance our chances of registering a win on the seats,” Abhimanyu Kumar, member of the BJP’s State Working Committee said.

Sources among the ‘rebels’ said that keeping to their former constituencies, Pradeep Batra will be contesting from Roorkee, Kunwar Pranav Singh Champion from Khanpur, Subodh Uniyal from Narendranagar, Rekha Arya from Someshwar, Shailendra Mohan Singhal from Jaspur and Umesh Sharma (Kau) from Raipur.

Harak Singh Rawat, who is one of the strongest candidates among the ‘rebels’, is asking for a ticket from the Lansdowne constituency though he was the Congress MLA from Rudraprayag. Mr. Bahuguna is asking for the Sitarganj constituency ticket, from where Mr. Bahuguna was an MLA, for his son Saurav Bahuguna.

However, the situation of the remaining two ‘rebels’remains unclear.

Suresh Chand Jain, who is a strong BJP candidate from Roorkee and had lost to Mr. Batra in the 2012 Assembly elections by only 801 votes, could cause problems for his party if not given a ticket.

Khanpur could now be a challenge for Mr. Champion since it has about 3,500 Muslim voters who are loyal to the Congress.

Om Gopal Rawat is another BJP leader who is expecting a party ticket — he had lost to Mr. Uniyal in the Narendranagar seat by only 401 votes.