Uttarakhand BJP's Rajya Sabha candidate Dinesh Arya elected unopposed

Dehradun: BJP's Rajya Sabha candidate from Uttarakhand, Dinesh Arya, was elected unopposed on Friday.

Hem Chandra Pant, the Officer-in-Charge for the Uttarakhand Assembly and returning officer, handed the certificate of election to Arya following his unopposed election to the Rajya Sabha seat.

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Friday was the last day for withdrawal of nominations and no other candidate was fielded by Congress or any other party.

Chief Electoral Officer B V R C Purushottam and additional chief electoral officer Mastu Das were present on this occasion, alongside legislative assembly secretariat officials and BJP office-bearers and party workers.

The seat was held by BJP's Naresh Bansal, whose six-year term is expiring on November 25.

Hailing from Haldwani in the Nainital district, Arya has long been associated with the BJP and is considered a close associate of Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami.

He began his political journey in 1985 with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and subsequently joined the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM).

He served as the Nainital district president from 2007 to 2010 and was later appointed as a national secretary of the BJP's Scheduled Caste Morcha.

Currently, he holds the rank of Minister of State and serves as the Vice-Chairman of the state-level Drinking Water Monitoring Council. He has been a contender for a party ticket in the last two assembly elections.