For Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna, the Sitarganj bypolls, which would be held on July 8, would not be cakewalk because BJP candidate Prakash Pant is giving him a tough fight. Although Congress leaders say CM Bahuguna would win the bypoll, they are not sure about the victory margin.
With an intention to give a tough fight to CM Bahuguna, Uttarakhand BJP in-charge Thawar Chand Gehlot along with State senior leaders, including leader of opposition Ajay Bhatt, have been camping in Sitarganj and will remain there till the poll.
Talking to The Pioneer, Bhatt said, “We have managed to create panic for the Chief Minister which is why he has been visiting each street of the Sitarganj Assembly constituency. The BJP is educating people about how the Chief Minister misused his chair to lure BJP’s Ex-MLA Kiran Mandal, who resigned before attending even a single day of Vidhan Sabha session.”
Bhatt further alleged that the Congress is misusing official machinery to threaten their leader Kishore Rai and his family members because he dared to disclose the deal between Mandal and the Congress.
The BJP is busy highlighting zero achievements of 100-days old Vijay Bahuguna-led Uttarakhand Government, as Bahuguna was busy reshuffling the cabinet and frequently visiting Delhi. Instead of serving the state, the CM has been busy in road shows in Sitarganj for the last three days. These are enough indications that the CM is facing threat from the BJP candidate Pant and hence not ready to leave any stones unturned. The BJP leaders keep raising the issue of power and deteriorating law and order situation of the state since inception of Bahuguna led state government.
Three ex-CMs of the BJP — Bhagat Singh Koshiyari, Maj Gen (retd) BC Khanduri and Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank — are supposed to campaign in support of Prakash Pant, although Nishank’s wife is not well so he would not stay overnight in Sitarganj. Bhatt reiterated that their candidate has managed to educate the voters about financial allurement given to Mandal to make him vacate his seat.
Meanwhile, Uttarakhand Congress Vice President Surykant Dhasmana said that CM Bahuguna will win the bypoll by a huge margin. BJP candidate Prakash Pant is facing tough situation because he is not the right candidate to mobilise local residents. For this, the BJP has been diverting its workers form Udhamsinghnagar and Rudrapur because its sole leader Kishore Rai has gone underground for reasons best known to him, added Dhasmana.
“The Congress Government has done several works like giving land ownership right to the migrant Bengali community, who have been running here and there for the last several years. Now it is their turn to vote for CM Bahuguna in return of land ownership right,” he added.
This, however, is not the first time when the CM is contesting a by-poll as in 2002; the then chief minister ND Tiwari had won Ramnagar Assembly by poll defeating Ram Singh Bisht of BJP by an impressive margin of 23,220 votes. Again in 2007, the then Chief Minister Maj Gen Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri had defeated Surendra Singh Negi of the Congress by a huge margin of more than 14,000 votes in Dhumakot by-election.
Src: Daily pioneer