The stage is being set for the election for the prestigious post of the mayor of Municipal Corporation of Dehradun ( MCD) with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) candidate Sunil Uniyal ‘Gama’ and Aam Aadami Party’s (AAP) nominee Rajni Rawat having filed their nomination papers on Monday and the senior Congress leader Dinesh Agarwal slated to submit his papers on Tuesday.
After the delimitation expanding the limit of the municipal corporation, a large number of villages in periphery of Dehradun city have been included by the State Government, resulting in the number of wards under MCD going to 100 from 60.
Observers say that the high-stake mayoral election here would be a prestige election for both the Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat and the State Congress chief Pritam Singh as the candidates up in the fray for their respective parties are their choices. Furthermore, both the CM and PCC chief are legislators from constituencies which fall in Dehradun district.
The BJP candidate Sunil Uniyal ‘Gama’ is said to be a close confidante of CM Rawat who virtually steamrolled claims of other powerful leaders to make the party brass to clear the decks for his loyalist. It is now clear that CM and his team would leave no stone unturned to have ‘Gama’ elected. BJP insiders say that the party would bank on the clean image of CM, completion of infrastructural projects like Mokampur railway over- bridge, Dat Kali tunnel, road broadening works and successful Investors Summit to woo the voters.
Conscious of the importance of the election-perhaps the last major one before the crucial general election slated early next year, the Congress, on the other hand, has persuaded senior leader and former Minister Dinesh Agarwal to contest.
Agarwal, a battle-hardened old horse in the Congress, had turned out to be the giant killer when he had defeated then Chief Minister Nityanand Swami from Laxman Chowk Assembly constituency in 2002. He had retained the seat in 2007 and he had won again in 2012 when, post-delimitation, a new constituency of Dharampur had been carved out.
He had been made a cabinet Minister in the Congress-helmed Government in 2012. His winning streak was, however, broken in 2017 when the former mayor Vinod Chamoli humbled him from Dharampur constituency, riding the crest of the saffron wave that swept BJP back to power.
The Congress would bank on the stature of Agarwal as a veteran leader aside from cashing on the public sentiment generated against the High Court (HC)-ordered demolition drive.
The presence of the AAP candidate, Rajni Rawat who is a force to reckon with, given her track records in the mayoral fray, might make the contest a triangular one.
Observers say she is quite capable of eating substantially into the votes of both BJP and Congress. Notably, Rawat had polled more votes than Congress in the mayoral election 2008. She had also unsuccessfully contested the same election in 2013. Many believe that she would prove a spoilsport more for the Congress candidate Dinesh Agarwal than BJP’s Sunil Uniyal ‘Gama’.
Independent candidate and secretary of Uttaranchal bank employees association Jagmohan Mehendiratta having pitched into the fray has added further interest to the contest. Supported by more than 20 social and employees organisations and the statehood activists who are vociferous on their demand for declaration of Gairsain as the permanent capital of Uttarakhand, he might make his presence felt at the civic body husting, the political commentators say.
