BJP’s Asha Nautiyal wins Kedarnath seat
PrashantNews
BJP’s Asha Nautiyal trounced Manoj Rawat of Congress by more than 5622 votes in the Kedarnath assembly constituency in Uttarakhand where byelection was held on Nov 20. This is the third victory of Nautiyal from Kedarnath. She got 23814 votes against Rawat’s 18192 votes.
Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami who campaigned tirelessly in the constituency for Nautiyal said the poll result in favour of BJP was a big slap on the faces of Congress leaders who were spreading lies in Kedarnath. Dhami thanked the people of Kedarnath for giving BJP a big victory. Former Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank has also actively campaigned for Nautiyal.
For the ruling BJP, the Kedarnath seat has become an issue of prestige after it lost Badrinath and Mangalaur seats in the July byelection.
The surprise element in the Kedarnath byelection was emergence of independent candidate Tribhuwan Singh, an engineer turned journalist, who managed to get 9311 votes making the election a triangular contest. Singh was on third place behind Rawat.
Leaders of both the BJP and Congress parties had worked hard to drum up support for the two candidates.
Ignoring the name of former cabinet minister Harak Singh Rawat, the Congress had approved the candidature of Manoj Rawat. Similarly, BJP had ignored the name of Aishwarya to field Nautiyal from Kedarnath.
The big victories in Badrinath and Mangalaur few months ago gave the Congress a new hope that it could win Kedarnath seat also. The Kedarnath seat fell vacant following the death of Shaila Rani Rawat on July 9.
After its ignominious defeat in the Lok Sabha elections for the third time consecutively in the state, the Congress showed signs of recovery when it won both Badrinath and Manglaur seats in the bypolls in July.
On the other hand, CM Dhami had announced a number of new schemes to benefit the Kedarnath people. In most of his rallies, he gave credit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the development in Kedarnath.
Very good