Karan Mahara, Harish Rawat spar over Cong ticket from Haridwar seat
By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 24 Feb: As the parliamentary elections draw nearer, it is becoming evident that Haridwar remains the best hope for the Congress in the coming elections. Among all the five Parliamentary constituencies, namely, Tehri, Pauri, Haridwar, Nainital and Almora, the Congress leaders are having maximum hopes from Haridwar. This is the reason why all the party leaders who have a strong backing in the party high command are competing fiercely with each other in an attempt to secure Congress ticket from Haridwar. It is not that Haridwar is an easy option for the Congress leaders as it has lost the constituency two straight times to BJP. The last time Congress won the seat was in 2009 when Harish Rawat had won the seat defeating Swami Yatindranand Giri. In 2014, Harish Rawat was the Chief Minister when his wife Renuka Rawat contested the elections and lost to Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank while despite all the lobbying in 2019, Harish Rawat could not secure ticket from Haridwar either for himself or his daughter Anunpama Rawat and it was Ambrish IngteKumar who was fielded by Congress against sitting MP Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and was defeated.
Yet, Haridwar owing to its rather different demographic nature, remains a good base for Congress as it has a high percentage of Dalit and Muslim voters. It has been due to this combination that BSP and SP have also done well in this district in assembly and the parliamentary elections. Congress this time too hopes to cash in on this permutation due to Muslim vote-bank.
This has led various senior and budding Congress leaders to lobby from this seat despite not belonging to Haridwar. Harish Rawat hails from Almora district but is lobbying for the party ticket from Haridwar, Last time, he contested from Nainital seat against Ajay Bhatt but was defeated in 2019. Harish Rawat has been nurturing this constituency for past two decades in fact and even now, he is hoping to secure the Congress ticket from here either for himself or his son Anand Rawat. It may be noteworthy to point out here that his daughter Anupama Rawat is an MLA from Haridwar Rural assembly seat from Haridwar district.
However, he this time faces tough competition not only from his arch rivals within the party but also from his own proteges like Karan Mahara amongst others who are laying claims from Haridwar in the coming parliamentary poll. Among those in race for Congress ticket from Haridwar are Harak Singh Rawat, Karan Mahara and some local leaders from Haridwar.
Sources claim that those who have applied for Congress ticket from Haridwar, Pradesh Congress Committee President Karan Mahara is a leading claimant for the party ticket on this seat. It may be recalled that Mahara who had won from Ranikhet Assembly constituency in 2017 had lost from there in 2022 assembly elections. Incidentally, Karan Mahara is closely related to Renuka Rawat who is Harish Rawat’s wife. However, according to sources in the party, Harish Rawat has not taken the claim of Mahara in a positive manner and has openly expressed his reservations over the claim of Karan Mahara. Harish Rawat has allegedly stated that in case Karan Mahara is serious to contest parliamentary elections this time, then he should first resign as PCC Chief. On the other hand. Mahara has sought to remind him that in the past, Pritam Singh, Kishor Upadhyay and Ganesh Godyal were amongst the PCC Chiefs who had themselves contested the elections. However, Karan Mahara has refused to be drawn into an open brawl with Harish Rawat on this topic and has also stated that Harish Rawat is very senior leader and a Bhisma Pitamah of Congress politics. Hence, only he can understand what he states and hence he will not comment on what Harish Rawat has spoken about him (Karan Mahara).
However, it needs to pointed out that Karan Mahara’s name is mentioned even in respect of other constituencies namely Nainital and Pauri though he too hails from Almora but Almora remains a reserved constituency since past two terms.
One point however needs to be stressed here. Haridwar, seat has been a stronghold of even regional parties like BSP and SP when it was a reserved constituency owing to large population of SC votes besides having a significant population of Muslim votes. However, that was prior to the delimitation exercise carried out before the 2014 polls. After the delimitation exercise before the 2014 polls, several assembly constituencies from Dehradun district also now form part of the Haridwar Constituency and they are Doiwala, Dharampur and Rishikesh, besides all the constituencies from Haridwar district namely Haridwar city, Haridwar Rural, BHEL Ranipur, Jwalapur, Bhagwanpur, Manglaur, Jhabreda, Piran Kaliyar, Roorkee and Khanpur. The demography of Doiwala and Dharampur has also changed significantly with addition of Muslim votes but these constituencies have also added a large number of Pahari voters which has kind of offset the effect of minority votes in these three assembly segments. Among the OBC votes, Jats too form a significant part of rural Haridwar but with RLD joining the NDA alliance, a large portion of Jat votes may have tilted towards BJP led NDA. Hence the possibilities remain interesting on this seat even as the Congress seems most enthusiastic on this particular seat with respect to coming Lok Sabha polls.
