Home Dehradun Dehradun continues to be major pillar of support for BJP

Dehradun continues to be major pillar of support for BJP

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By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 10 Mar: With the results declared for the Assembly elections in Uttarakhand, it has once again emerged that Dehradun continues to be a major pillar of support for the party. With the exception of 2002 elections, BJP has always managed to edge out the Congress in this particular district. The one seat, however, that has consistently been won by the Congress since 2002 has been the Chakrata constituency. Even this time, Chakrata has been won by Congress stalwart Pritam Singh, with a margin of 9436 votes. However, since the 2017 polls, BJP has fully dominated the Congress in this district with the sole exception of Chakrata constituency. Others like Raipur, Dharampur have also been won for the second consecutive time by the BJP though, in 2012, both these seats had been won by the Congress. Interestingly, however, Raipur seat had been won for the Congress in 2012 by Umesh Sharma ‘Kau’, who had in 2016 shifted loyalty to the BJP and now has won it a second consecutive time for the BJP with a margin of over 30,000 votes. Dharampur, which has been won for the Congress three times consecutively by Dinesh Aggarwal, is now turning out to be a BJP bastion with Vinod Chamoli winning it for the second time. This is one seat with a large population of Muslims and has, therefore, been considered a difficult one for the BJP. Chamoli, a former Dehradun Mayor, has however been able to win against Aggarwal rather comfortably even this time with a margin of over 10,100 votes.
The Mussoorie seat, which had been won in 2002 and 2007 by Jot Singh Gunsola, is now owned by Ganesh Joshi of the BJP. Rajpur MLA (2007) Ganesh Joshi had switched over to Mussoorie seat in 2012 after the Rajpur seat was reserved for the SC candidates. Since then, Joshi has been winning this seat quite comfortably. This time he won the seat with a margin of 15,325 votes.
Dehradun Cantt seat has been owned by the BJP and its MLA, the late Harbans Kapoor, who suddenly passed away three months ago. His widow, Savita Kapoor, was given the BJP ticket and managed to win it comfortably against second time candidate Suryakant Dhasmana of the Congress. She defeated Dhasmana by a margin of over 20,000 votes. Interestingly, Dhasmana has contested several assembly elections in the state but has failed to taste success in any of them. It was the second time that he had contested as a Congress candidate but still failed to win.
Sahaspur was being considered a very weak seat for the BJP this time, although Sahdev Pundir had won it twice already and rather comfortably. In the initial stages of the counting process, Pundir trailed Aryendra Sharma of Congress and it appeared for quite a few hours that Sharma would win it comfortably. However, once again, Pundir proved to be a strong candidate and his active role as MLA added to the Modi factor ensured his win once again by a margin of 8,355 votes.
The Rajpur seat which had been won in 2007 by Rajkumar of Congress has also been won by the BJP for the second time with a margin of 11,163 votes. Yet another MLA consistently winning from this district for the BJP is Prem Chand Aggarwal. In 2007, he had won from Doiwala seat, but had to switch over to Rishikesh when, in 2012, the Doiwala ticket was given to Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, who won it for the BJP before becoming MP in 2014. BJP, however, had lost the byelection in 2014 when Congress stalwart Hira Singh Bist managed to win the seat. In 2017, however, this seat was won by Trivendra Singh Rawat. This time, Rawat did not contest and lobbied for a ticket to his choice Brij Mohan Gairola who too has managed to win this seat against Gaurav of Congress and that too by a very wide margin of over 29,000 votes.