By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 27 Jul: Newly elected MLAs from Manglaur in district Haridwar and from Badrinath in district Chamoli, Qazi Nizamuddin and Lakhpat Butola respectively have been administered oath of office and secrecy at Vidhan Sabha Bhawan here today by Speaker Ritu Khanduri Bhushan. This oath was administered to the newly elected MLAs by Assembly Speaker Ritu Khanduri Bhushan in her office chamber in the Assembly building. After taking oath, the newly elected MLAs thanked all the dignitaries and pledged to fulfil their responsibilities with honesty and integrity.
After the oath, Assembly Speaker Ritu Khanduri Bhushan congratulated both the MLAs and wished them all the best for the upcoming term. She expressed confidence that the newly elected MLAs will make significant contributions to the development of their constituencies and the interest of the state. The leaders and MLAs present on the occasion also expressed their best wishes and hoped for the active contribution of both the MLAs in the upcoming session. Leader of the Opposition Yashpal Arya, former Chief Minister Harish Rawat, Pritam Singh and other Congress MLAs were present on this occasion.
It may be recalled that Qazi Nizamuddin is a fourth time newly elected MLA from Manglaur. This is however the second time he has won the assembly election on the Congress ticket. The other two times he had been elected as BSP MLA from 2002 to 2007 and from 2007 to 2012. Before the end of his term as BSP MLA in 2012, he had already switched his loyalty to Congress and was given the Congress ticket in 2012 but he lost to BSP’s Sarwat Karim Ansari who too switched his loyalty to BSP from Congress after Qazi was given the ticket of Congress from Manglaur. In 2017, Qazi managed to defeat Sarwat Karim but lost again in 2022 to him. The byelection was necessitated by sudden death of the incumbent MLA Sarwat Karim Ansari and though Sarwat Karim Ansari’s son Ubaidur Rahman was given the BSP ticket but he could not make much impression and surprisingly, the BJP performed well and came close to winning this seat for the first time ever since the formation of Uttarakhand. Qazi Nizamuddin ultimately defeated Kartar Singh Bhadana of BJP by a narrow margin of 400 odd votes.
At the same time, Congress candidate on Badrinath Lakhpat Butola was given the Congress ticket for the first time and he managed to win comfortably by a margin of over 5,000 votes defeating the outgoing MLA Rajendra Singh Bhandari. The by-poll on this seat had been necessitated by resignation of Bhandari from the House and from Congress, Though he contested again, albeit this time on BJP ticket, Bhandari was unable to get enough support from the voters.
