Uttarakhand Assembly Polls: Harish Rawat To Contest From Lalkuan Seat As Congress Shuffles Candidates In Third List

Former Uttarakhand chief minister and Congress leader Harish Rawat will be leading the party campaign from the Lalkuwa constituency instead of the previously announced Ramnagar seat.

Former Uttarakhand CM Harish Rawat | (File Photo/ Getty Images)

New Delhi: The third list of candidates announced by Congress on Wednesday has revealed that former Uttarakhand chief minister and Congress leader Harish Rawat will now contest the February 14 assembly elections from the Lalkuan seat instead of Ramnagar, which was declared earlier.

In a major shuffle, Congress changed the former CM’s seat in the third list of 10 candidates announced late on Wednesday. In fact, the party changed the seats of five of its previously nominated candidates.

The party has amended the names of candidates in the previous two lists while nominating Rawat’s daughter Anupama Rawat from the Haridwar rural assembly seat.

Earlier in 2017, Rawat had contested from the Kichcha and Haridwar rural assembly seats in the last assembly polls but failed to win. While Rawat replaces Sandhya Dalakoti for the Lalkuan seat, Mahender Pal Singh will be contesting in Rawat’s place from the Ramnagar assembly constituency. Singh has been earlier nominated by the party to contest the Kaladhungi assembly seat, from where the party has now fielded Mahesh Sharma.

Besides, the party also names Gaurav Chaudhary in place of Mohit Uniyal for the Doiwala assembly seat and Ravi Bahadur replaced Barkha Rani for the Jwalapur-SC seat.

The party has nominated Yashpal Rana from Roorkee.

Meanwhile, heavy snowfall and the cold wave conditions along with the Covid situation have made electioneering difficult in the hill state of Uttarakhand. The elections in the state will begin on February 14.

The low-key campaign by political parties owing to the restrictions imposed by the Election Commission on political rallies till January 31 due to Covid has now been further impacted by a spell of heavy snowfall and rain that started last week.

Even as the 10 people limit on door-to-door campaigns and meetings in big halls restricted to half their capacities, the weather conditions have been added to the additional troubles for candidates.

Heavy snowfall has partially cut off many villages in the hills making it almost impossible for candidates to reach them.