Tuesday, 08 February 2022 | Gajendra Singh Negi | Rudraprayag
Created in the year 1997 the district of Rudraprayag is spread in an area of 1,984 square kilometres in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand. The district has only two assembly seats- Rudraprayag and Kedarnath assembly segments. One of the key features of both these two constituencies is the fact that here the women voters outnumber the male voters. After a slow start the political parties and the candidates have now succeeded in stirring up the election cauldron and are trying to take it to a feverish pitch. In both these constituencies lack of health care facilities and educational institutes are two main issues which the people want their representatives to solve. The locals also point out that there are still many villages in the area which are not connected with roads.
In Rudraprayag the BJP has reposed faith on the current MLA Bharat Chaudhary while Congress has fielded young Pradeep Thapliyal. Denied ticket, senior leader of the Congress party and former cabinet minister Matbar Singh Kandari has turned rebel and is contesting as an independent candidate. The Congress candidate Thapliyal is focussing on the social welfare schemes announced by his party. He is also accusing the BJP candidate of doing nothing for the area in the last five years. In the elections of 2017, Bharat Chaudhary secured 29,933 votes while Laxmi Rana of Congress finished a distant second with 14,701 votes. When contacted by The Pioneer, Chaudhary said that construction of the Sainik School in the area would be his priority if he is re-elected.
In the neighbouring Kedarnath constituency the Congress has given the ticket to the sitting MLA Manoj Rawat while BJP has reposed faith in Shaila Rani Rawat. Incidentally Shaila Rani Rawat, the BJP candidate had finished fourth in the last elections. Here the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has fielded Sumant Tiwari and independent candidate Kuldeep Rawat is trying to make the contest multi cornered. In the elections of 2017 Kuldeep Rawat finished a close second behind Manoj Rawat leaving the BJP candidate in fourth position in a four cornered contest.
Kuldeep Gairola a resident of Triyuginarayan said that a blueprint for development of tourism should be made to create employment opportunities. Sarla Rawat of Agastyamuni said that the elected representatives should focus on reducing the burden of work on rural women. She said that though the government has launched the Ghasyari scheme for the rural women nothing concrete has been done on ground.
In Kedarnath the BJP candidate Shaila Rani is banking on the Modi factor to sail through while the AAP candidate and independent Kuldeep Rawat are targeting sitting MLA Manoj Rawat for failing to nurture the constituency. Manoj Rawat told The Pioneer that the BJP government deliberately blocked the proposals submitted by him. He said that he has built libraries in every village. The sitting MLA said that he is focussing on development of the health facilities in the area and creating the employment opportunities
