<p>Anil Baluni is the charge of media coordination at the party headquarters in Delhi. Considered close to the top party leadership, Baluni was a Rajya Sabha member from Uttarakhand, and his term ended in April. The party has asked him to contest direct elections and was given a ticket from the Garhwal by dropping its sitting MP and former CM Tirath Singh Rawat.</p><p>Baluni has in the past worked closely with SS Bhandari, a founding member of the BJP who served as the governor of Gujarat during the Vajpayee government. He returned to Uttarakhand politics to contest assembly polls from Kotdwar but lost.</p><p>Former Uttarakhand CM Maj Gen B C Khandoori has won the Garhwal seat on 5 occasions. It comprises 14 assembly segments spread across the hilly terrain and far-flung areas including Badrinath and Kedarnath.</p>.<p>The former Uttarakhand Congress President was initially reluctant to take the electoral plunge from Pauri. With former CM BC Khandori’s son Manish- the Congress candidate from Garhwal in the 2019 LS elections- joining BJP on the eve of the polls, not many in the party were willing to take up the challenge.</p><p>With the party insisting, Godiyal filed his nomination papers to make the Pauri election an all-Brahmin contest between him and BJP’s Baluni.</p><p>Godiyal has been a career politician who has risen the ranks in the party. The former MLA from Srinagar however lost the last assembly polls by a narrow margin.</p><p>During his campaign, Godiyal sought to make the election a contest between ‘local vs outsider’.</p><p>In terms of size, Pauri Garhwal is the biggest constituency among Uttarakhand’s 5 seats.</p><p>BJP secured more than two-thirds of the total votes cast in this seat in the 2019 elections. </p><p><em><a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/tags/lok-sabha-elections-2024">Keep up with the Lok Sabha 2024 elections here</a></em></p>
<p>Anil Baluni is the charge of media coordination at the party headquarters in Delhi. Considered close to the top party leadership, Baluni was a Rajya Sabha member from Uttarakhand, and his term ended in April. The party has asked him to contest direct elections and was given a ticket from the Garhwal by dropping its sitting MP and former CM Tirath Singh Rawat.</p><p>Baluni has in the past worked closely with SS Bhandari, a founding member of the BJP who served as the governor of Gujarat during the Vajpayee government. He returned to Uttarakhand politics to contest assembly polls from Kotdwar but lost.</p><p>Former Uttarakhand CM Maj Gen B C Khandoori has won the Garhwal seat on 5 occasions. It comprises 14 assembly segments spread across the hilly terrain and far-flung areas including Badrinath and Kedarnath.</p>.<p>The former Uttarakhand Congress President was initially reluctant to take the electoral plunge from Pauri. With former CM BC Khandori’s son Manish- the Congress candidate from Garhwal in the 2019 LS elections- joining BJP on the eve of the polls, not many in the party were willing to take up the challenge.</p><p>With the party insisting, Godiyal filed his nomination papers to make the Pauri election an all-Brahmin contest between him and BJP’s Baluni.</p><p>Godiyal has been a career politician who has risen the ranks in the party. The former MLA from Srinagar however lost the last assembly polls by a narrow margin.</p><p>During his campaign, Godiyal sought to make the election a contest between ‘local vs outsider’.</p><p>In terms of size, Pauri Garhwal is the biggest constituency among Uttarakhand’s 5 seats.</p><p>BJP secured more than two-thirds of the total votes cast in this seat in the 2019 elections. </p><p><em><a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/tags/lok-sabha-elections-2024">Keep up with the Lok Sabha 2024 elections here</a></em></p>
