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| Cong wins Pauri-Garwal, BJP citadel in Uttakhand lay shattered |
| Press Trust of India / Dehra dun May 17, 2009, 14:40 IST |
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Congress has finally demolished BJP's political citadel in Uttarakhand by winning all five Lok Sabha seats in the state after the last result from Pauri-Garhwal also went to its favour this morning.
Significantly, Uttarakhand is the only BJP-ruled state in the country where the party gave the worst performance by failing to open its account.
This is also being seen a major dent to the image of Chief Minister B C Khanduri, whose functioning came under fire from a majority of the BJP MLAs, who had demanded his ouster last year ahead of the election.
Though BJP, which is credited for the formation of the hill state, lost the assembly elections in 2002, it never lost more than two seats in all the previous parliamentary polls during the past 25 years.
The winning streak of Congress continued this morning also after its candidate Satpal Maharaj unseated BJP's TPS Rawat from Pauri-Garhwal, a constituency represented by Khanduri for nearly 15 years, by 17,397 votes.
Counting of votes was held up last night following a complaint by Maharaj, who was fearing rigging by the ruling BJP. However, when the counting of votes was again taken up this morning, Maharaj was declared the winner.
This is the second victory of Maharaj from Pauri-Garhwal since 1991. Earlier, Maharaj had faced defeats in the hands of Khanduri and Rawat. Only in 1996, he managed to defeat Khanduri from this seat.With Maharaj's success, the BJP's fort has finally collapsed in the hill state where it ruled the roost for nearly 25 years. The last time in the hill state, Congress won all the five seats was in 1985 during Rajiv Gandhi leadership.
The best performance of Congress came from Haridwar where it bagged the seat after a gap of 25 years.
Former PCC chief Harish Rawat trounced BJP's Swami Yatindranand Giri by a huge margin — 1.23 lakh votes.
Significantly, Congress was earlier forfeited of its deposits on many occasions from Haridwar where it had lost ground to parties like BSP, SP and BJP in the past 25 years.
Similarly, BJP lost the Almora seat also after a gap of 25 years. Uttarakhand Horticulture Minister Ajay Tamata lost to Pradip Tamata by a margin of 6,950 votes from this area.
In Tehri, Vijay Bahuguna beat ace shooter BJP's Jaspal Rana by a comfortable margin of 52,939 votes. BJP state President Bachi Singh Rawat tasted the first defeat when he lost the Nainital seat to Congress' K C Singh Baba by 88,412 votes.
In all previous occasions, Rawat had won from Almora. But this time, Rawat shifted his candidacy to Nainital after Almora became a reserved seat.
"I am feeling proud that Congress won all the five seats in Uttarakhand for which we are grateful to the people of Uttakhand," state Congress President Yashpal Arya said.
Meanwhile, BJP has decided to hold a meeting shortly to review its performance in the wake of its debacle.
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