By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 10 Mar: Uttarakhand has never failed to spring major surprises in each election. This time, it was again a strong defeat of Congress stalwart and undeclared CM candidate Harish Rawat, who was defeated by BJP candidate Dr Mohan Singh Bist from Lalkuan seat by a margin of over 17,000 votes. Other big names who lost include Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, Congress leaders Ganesh Godiyal, who is PCC Chief, Karan Mahra and Sanjiv Arya, who had switched over to Congress just before the elections. Among the ministers, Dhan Singh Rawat barely managed to retain his seat by a margin of just over 587 votes, while Yateeshwaranand lost his election to Anupama Rawat of Congress by a margin of 4472 votes.
From the Congress, Anukruti Gusain, the former beauty queen and daughter-in-law of Harak Singh Rawat, too, lost by a margin of over 9800 votes. Manglaur MLA Qazi Nizamuddin also lost to Sarvat Karim Ansari of BSP.
Similarly, former Speaker and veteran Congress leader Govind Singh Kunjwal from Jageshwar also lost his seat to Mohan Singh of BJP.
It may be recalled that Harish Rawat was the head of the Congress campaign committee and had played a crucial role in distribution of tickets. He wanted to contest from Ramnagar this time but due to internal conflicts, had to switch over to Lalkuan seat from where he lost by a huge margin.
After his defeat, Harish Rawat conceded his defeat vide a tweet in which he stated that the results for were extremely surprising in his opinion. He added that he was hoping that people were tired of inflation and lack of public welfare and would teach BJP a lesson. He said he was surprised that even after so many failures and problems, how could people still support the BJP Government in Uttarakhand. He added that despite hard work by the party leaders and the workers, the party had failed to win the trust of the people. Probably, effort was lacking somewhere and therefore the Congress failed to win trust of the people. He thanked all for their support and congratulated those who had won on his own and on his daughter Anupama Rawat’s behalf. He also owned responsibility for the party’s defeat. Incidentally, Anupama Rawat won her election from Haridwar Rural from where her father had lost in 2017.
