Poll campaigning to end in U'khand Tuesday

The campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls in Uttarakhand, which saw the BJP and the Congress's top brass, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and Rahul Gandhi addressing big rallies over the past fortnight, will come to an end Tuesday. As in the past general elections, this time again the Congress and the BJP are locked in straight contests in all the five Lok Sabha seats of the state, where political parties have thrown all their might into campaigning as it nears its end holding public meetings and roadshows to garner votes for themselves.

The BJP, which had won all the five seats from the state in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, is claiming that it will retain all of them, but poll watchers opine intense campaigning by PCC president Pritam Singh, who is contesting from Tehri and AICC general secretary Harish Rawat, who is trying his luck from Nainital, have left the BJP worried. The BJP has renominated sitting MP from Tehri and daughter-in-law of the erstwhile Tehri royal family Mala Rajya Lakshmi Shah from the seat, who has won it twice in the past, once in 2012 bypolls and then in 2014.

On both the occasions, she defeated former chief minister Vijay Bahuguna's son Saket Bahuguna. Mala Rajya Lakshmi Shah, who is banking heavily on the traditional votes of the Tehri royal family loyalists, faces a stiff challenge from Pritam Singh, who wields considerable influence among Jaunsari tribal voters of Chakrata and adjoining areas, whose strength has been behind his four successive wins as an MLA from Chakrata.

In Nainital, Pradesh BJP president Ajay Bhatt is taking on Harish Rawat, who is a tall Congress leader from the state. Bhatt is a Lok Sabha poll debutante, while Rawat has long legislative experience. He was a Union minister under the UPA before becoming the chief minister of the state in 2014.

Throwing her weight behind Rawat, Leader of Opposition in Uttarakhand Assembly Indira Hridayesh, who had initially opposed Rawat's candidature from Nainital, said she has held eight campaign meetings in her assembly constituency of Haldwani in support of Rawat. An interesting contest is also on the cards in Pauri where BJP sitting MP BC Khanduri's son Manish is taking on his father's political disciple Tirath Singh Rawat.

Though pitted against each other, both of them claim to have Khanduri's blessings and being true heirs to his political legacy. Congress Rajya Sabha MP Pradeep Tamta and sitting BJP MP Ajay Tamta face each other once again in Almora. Ajay Tamta had defeated Pradeep Tamta by nearly one lakh votes in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Sitting BJP MP from Haridwar and former chief minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank is face to face with Congress's Ambarish Kumar, who is contesting his first Lok Sabha polls. Polling in the state's five parliamentary seats will be held on April 11. The counting of votes will take place on May 23.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)