Congress to announce nominees for remaining seats in Uttarakhand soon

DEHRADUN: The ruling Congress which has already announced candidates for two out of the five Lok Sabha seats in Uttarakhand will soon announce its nominees for rest of the seats, party sources said here today.

The names of former Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna's son Saket and that of state minister Harak Singh Rawat have been finalised for Tehri and Pauri seats respectively but the party is stuck over whom to field from Haridwar, a seat represented in the Lok Sabha by CM Harish Rawat, PCC sources said. The moment a nominee for Haridwar is finalised, the party will announce its candidates for rest of the seats in Uttarakhand, they said.

The Congress has already fielded its sitting MPs K C Singh Baba and Pradeep Tamta from Nainital and Almora seats. The sources said the party decided to field Saket Bahuguna from Tehri after his father Vijay Bahuguna refused to contest from the seat.

Once he enters the fray in Tehri, Saket will again be pitted against the sitting BJP MP and scion of erstwhile Tehri royal family, Mala Rajyalaxmi Shah, who had defeated him by nearly 22000 votes in 2012 bypoll necessitated by his father vacating the seat after becoming the Chief Minister. The Congress High Command has also given its nod to field Rawat from Pauri against BJP's Bhuvan Chandra Khanduri, the sources said.