Kedarnath assembly seat declared vacant, proposal sent for bypoll
By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 25 Jul: The office of the Chief Electoral Officer of Uttarakhand has sent a proposal to Election Commission of India (ECI) for a byelection on the Kedarnath assembly seat. This seat has fallen vacant after the death of incumbent MLA Shaila Rani Rawat on 9 July. Rawat had died after a prolonged illness.
With the proposal having been sent to the ECI, the assembly constituency has been formally declared vacant. The Election Commission is expected to soon announce the dates of the byelection.
Chief Electoral Officer Dr BVRCC Purushottam confirmed that a letter regarding the vacancy of the seat has been sent to the Central Election Commission of India and noted that the notification for the byelection will be issued by the Election Commission. Probably the Election Commission may conduct the byelection on this seat along with the byelections in UP.
This byelection will be watched with great political interest by the political pundits across the country as it follows those held in Manglaur (Haridwar) and Badrinath constituencies, both of which were won by the Congress.
Although, in Uttarakhand, Congress had lost all the five Lok Sabha seats, but its morale is high after wins in Manglaur and Badrinath. This is despite the fact that Badrinath was held by Congress since 2022 and had fallen vacant due to resignation of the incumbent MLA Rajendra Singh Bhandari after he quit Congress and joined the BJP just before the Parliamentary polls. However, Bhandari could not retain his popularity among the people after switching over to BJP. Manglaur is one constituency which has never been won by the BJP since the formation of Uttarakhand as a separate state. It was held by the BSP. It had fallen vacant after the death of incumbent MLA Sarwat Karim Ansari of BSP in October, last year. Congress has managed to snatch this seat from BSP but it faced a tough fight from the BJP, winning narrowly by a margin of just over 400 votes, relegating the BSP to a distant third.
BJP, particularly after losing the Badrinath seat, is somewhat on the backfoot. Badrinath being a religious place of global fame, it was an issue of prestige for the Hindutva party. Now that Kedarnath, another Hindu place of global fame will also witness the election and any loss here may have a potential to dent the BJP’s image, hence, the BJP is not taking the upcoming by-poll lightly. Having won all the 5 Lok Sabha seats, some level of over confidence and complacency was seen in the BJP in the recently held assembly by-polls.
Not only this, the Congress is trying to create an image of BJP as anti-Hindu by playing up the issues of announcement of a Kedarnath temple in Delhi and the alleged theft of gold from Kedarnath. In addition, the Congress in Uttarakhand is also claiming that the God had punished the BJP by ensuring its defeat in Badrinath and will do the same in Kedarnath, too. Congress is currently also holding a Pad Yatra to Kedarnath making several allegations against the BJP Government. On the other hand, BJP is merely reacting to the allegations, so far, instead of launching a counter attack against Congress on the issue.
