BJP hopes for smooth sailing in five Lok Sabha seats in Uttarakhand

Dehradun: The BJP is looking to hoist the saffron flag yet again in all five Lok Sabha seats of Uttarakhand, having won from all the parliamentary constituencies in the state in both the 2014 and 2019 general elections.

While two Lok Sabha seats in Uttarakhand -- Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar and Almora -- are located in Kumaon region, the remaining three seats of Haridwar, Tehri Garhwal and Garhwal (Pauri) are in the Garhwal region.

Union Minister of state for tourism and defence Ajay Bhatt had won the Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar seat in 2019, defeating former chief minister Harish Rawat by 3,39,096 votes. His victory margin was the biggest of the four other winning BJP candidates.

The other seat in Kumaon region is Almora, the lone reserved (SC) seat in the hill state. Ajay Tamta of the BJP has been winning it since 2014. In 2019 he had defeated Pradeep Tamta of the Congress by 2,32,986 votes.

In Garhwal (Pauri), former chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat had defeated BJP stalwart Bhuvan Chandra Khanduri's son Manish, a poll debutante on a Congress ticket, by 3,02,669 votes in 2019.

Tirath also had a four-month stint as chief minister before being replaced by Pushkar Singh Dhami in 2021.

Tehri royal Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah had won from Tehri Garhwal for a third time in a row in 2019 defeating Congress' Pritam Singh by 3,00,586 votes, while former chief minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank had defeated Congress' Ambrish Kumar in Haridwar by 2,58,729 votes.

It was Pokhriyal's second consecutive poll victory from the seat in 2019. In 2014 he had defeated Harish Rawat's wife Renuka on the seat by 1,77,822 votes.

The saffron party which has all the five seats in its kitty at present has fielded its sitting MPs from three of the seats while the candidates for two others have not been decided so far.

Of the three seats whose candidates have been announced by the BJP two are in Kumaon region and one in Garhwal.

Bhatt has been fielded again from Nainital-Udhamsingh Nagar, Shah from Tehri Garhwal and Tamta from Almora.

The two seats from where the party has not announced its candidates as yet are Haridwar, which is represented in the Lok Sabha by Nishank and Garhwal (Pauri) seat which was won by former chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat in 2019.