DEHRADUN: Former Uttarakhand chief minister Vijay Bahuguna, who represented the crucial Tehri-Garhwal constituency twice, has opted out of the Lok Sabha race this time.
Party observers say the withdrawal may be a tactical move to pave the way for his son Saket. But detractors point out that the party may not be too keen on Saket since he lost the bypoll held in 2011 — when Bahuguna vacated the seat to become CM — by a huge margin of over 22,000 seats to BJP's Mala Raj Lakshmi Shah of the erstwhile Tehri royal family. Another theory doing the rounds is that his son's debacle may have forced the former CM to do a rethink on contesting from the seat.
When contacted by TOI, Bahuguna said that while he had made up his mind not to contest, he will support the candidate chosen by the party leadership. On questioned about the possibility of Saket being fielded, he said that "the party chief will take a final call on the issue."
Congress state spokesman Dhirendra Pratap meanwhile said that Saket is a frontrunner for the seat although there are others in the fray too like Vikas Nagar MLA Nav Prabhat, five-time former legislator Surveer Singh Sajwan and former MLA Kishore Upadhaya.
In a related development, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) screening committee on Uttarakhand met in New Delhi on Friday to begin the process of finalizing the names of the party's candidates for the five parliamentary seats in the state. A well-placed source in AICC said that in all likelihood,, three sitting MPs from Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar, Almora-Pithoragarh and Pauri Garhwal —KC Singh Baba, Pradeep Tamta and Satpal Maharaj respectively, are expected to be retained from their seats. He added that there is also the possibility of chief minister Harish Rawat's wife Renuka or daughter Anupama being fielded from Haridwar, a seat that Rawat had won by a whooping margin of 1,35,000 votes in the 2009 polls.
Party observers say the withdrawal may be a tactical move to pave the way for his son Saket. But detractors point out that the party may not be too keen on Saket since he lost the bypoll held in 2011 — when Bahuguna vacated the seat to become CM — by a huge margin of over 22,000 seats to BJP's Mala Raj Lakshmi Shah of the erstwhile Tehri royal family. Another theory doing the rounds is that his son's debacle may have forced the former CM to do a rethink on contesting from the seat.
When contacted by TOI, Bahuguna said that while he had made up his mind not to contest, he will support the candidate chosen by the party leadership. On questioned about the possibility of Saket being fielded, he said that "the party chief will take a final call on the issue."
Congress state spokesman Dhirendra Pratap meanwhile said that Saket is a frontrunner for the seat although there are others in the fray too like Vikas Nagar MLA Nav Prabhat, five-time former legislator Surveer Singh Sajwan and former MLA Kishore Upadhaya.
In a related development, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) screening committee on Uttarakhand met in New Delhi on Friday to begin the process of finalizing the names of the party's candidates for the five parliamentary seats in the state. A well-placed source in AICC said that in all likelihood,, three sitting MPs from Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar, Almora-Pithoragarh and Pauri Garhwal —KC Singh Baba, Pradeep Tamta and Satpal Maharaj respectively, are expected to be retained from their seats. He added that there is also the possibility of chief minister Harish Rawat's wife Renuka or daughter Anupama being fielded from Haridwar, a seat that Rawat had won by a whooping margin of 1,35,000 votes in the 2009 polls.
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