By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 14 Jun: Late last evening, the BJP’s Central Election Committee expectedly declared Rajendra Singh Bhandari as its candidate from Badrinath Assembly constituency for the by-poll to be held on 10 July, and announced Kartar Singh Bhadana as its candidate from Manglaur assembly constituency. It may be recalled that Badrinath seat had fallen vacant following the resignation of the incumbent MLA Rajendra Singh Bhandari who had resigned as MLA after quitting his party, the Congress, and then joining the BJP. Since then, it was speculated that Bhandari had joined the BJP on the promise of being given the party ticket from Badrinath. Fortunately for Bhandari, his last time rival candidate from the BJP, Mahendra Singh Bhatt has since been elected to the Rajya Sabha besides being elected the State BJP President and, hence, he does not face any strong opposition from within the BJP. The party hopes that he will have a smooth sailing.
Bhadana
On the other hand, BJP has chosen Kartar Singh Bhadana as its candidate from Manglaur, a seat that has never been won by the BJP ever since the formation of Uttarakhand as a separate state. Bhadana is brother of another famous politician Avtar Singh Bhadana and, before joining the BJP, was a BSP leader in Haryana. In the past, he was also a member of INLD led by OP Chautala for considerable time and is not known to have a long background in the BJP. In fact, he was a cabinet minister in the OP Chautala Government in Haryana. As a BSP leader, he had won the Khatauli (District Muzaffarnagar) Assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh. He is a wealthy politician and is known to have used his influence to manage tickets from 3 states, so far. However, he faces major challenges as a BJP candidate from Manglaur and one is opposition to his candidature from the local BJP leaders who have been working hard in the constituency. Bhadana is a parachute candidate with no roots in Manglaur constituency.
The second challenge is the fact that Manglaur seat has a Muslim population of over 30 percent. This has been a key factor ever since the formation of the state why only Muslim candidates have won from this seat. In view of this, some were expecting the BJP to declare a Muslim candidate from here as an experiment. However, the fact remains that BJP has been expecting consolidation of non-Muslim votes on this seat and has never fielded any Muslim candidate from here. Kartar Singh Bhadana and his politician brother Avtar Singh Bhadana were both born in Faridabad and, currently, Avtar Singh Bhadana is an RLD MLA from Meerapur in UP. The local BJP leaders are learnt to be unhappy however with the candidature of Bhadana from Manglaur.
In Manglaur, he is likely to face a tough challenge from 3-time former MLA Qazi Nizamuddin and the BSP candidate. Sources today indicated that BSP Supremo Mayawati has assured Ubedur Rehman Monty, son of late Sarvat Karim Ansari, of the BSP ticket this time. Sarvat Karim Ansari had last time secured over 37 percent votes in this constituency to win against his closest rival, Qazi Nizamuddin. It may also be pertinent to remind here that BSP usually does not contest byelections as a matter of principle but, this time, it is keen to take up the fight.
