SP to contest all 70 seats in 2022 Uttarakhand Assembly polls

Dehradun: After the Bahujan Samaj Party, Uttarakhand Kranti Dal and Aam Aadmi Party, the Samajwadi Party has also announced that it will contest all 70 assembly segments in the upcoming assembly elections due early next year.

The party has started taking feedback from its workers and district unit office bearers to shortlist probable and deserving candidates.

According to Uttarakhand state in-charge and national spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary, the Samajwadi Party will position itself as a viable, reliable and development-oriented political option for the voters in the hill state.

The Samajwadi Party is currently focussing on party workers, booth management, membership drives and is also organising district headquarters, tehsil, block and panchayat level meetings.

In both Kumaon and Garhwal divisions, the SP in the coming days will hold conventions and chalk out poll strategy with senior party leaders and organisational office bearers to address the party workers.

Citing resentment among voters against the BJP-led Central and state government, Chaudhary said in the name of double engine governance, the BJP had misled the people, failing to usher in development despite having a five-year term in the hill state.

“What has BJP done for Uttarakhand, apart from changing 3 chief ministers in four and half years? Mahakumbh fake testing scam, factionalism within the party, differences among cabinet ministers and legislators, corruption and lucrative poll announcements by current CM Pushkar Singh Dhami are some of them. Just less than five months are left but CM Dhami is making announcements which will leave the state exchequer in debt,” said Chaudhary, who is a former UP cabinet minister.

On the Samajwadi Party’s election focus, BJP district president Jaypal Singh Chauhan said that in Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi party is afraid of CM Yogi Adityanath while in Uttarakhand it is afraid of Pushkar Singh Dhami owing to his popularity, corruption-free governance and mass appeal of both the CMs.

“Even if they get 70 deserving candidates it will be a herculean task to win a single assembly seat. In the past 21 years of state formation with four assembly elections held so far, they haven’t won a single seat. So, claims are easy to make. But the fact is, Samajwadi party has no base in the state,” said the BJP district president.

Congress state vice president Suryakant Dhasmana said voters have already made up their mind to bring Congress back to power in Uttarakhand. “There is no scope of any other party becoming a political option for voters barring Congress in the state,” he said.

Apart from the BJP and Congress, other parties like Bahujan Samaj Party, Uttarakhand Kranti Dal, Aam Aadmi Party and Lok Jan Shakti Party had also earlier announced that their candidates will contest on all 70 assembly segments in the next election.

Uttarakhand Kranti Dal president Kashi Singh Airi has said that already his party has mobilised its workers in both the Kumaon and Garhwal division of the state. This means UKD will also field its candidates in the plains of Udham Singh Nagar, Haridwar and Dehradun.

The Bahujan Samaj Party on the other hand has decided to contest independently in the 2022 assembly elections without entering into any alliance.

BSP state unit president Naresh Gautam said that in both UP and Uttarakhand there is anti-incumbency and voters realise that only the BSP can provide a strong, secular and development-oriented government.

The Aam Aadmi Party has also announced that it will contest all the assembly segments in the hill state.

Rashtriya Lok Dal national secretary and Uttarakhand in-charge Braham Singh Baliyan said that the party has a major chance of making an entry and finding a foothold in the hill state so it is preparing to contest all seventy seats.