Prominent city leaders file nomination papers amid tight security

Dehradun January 9
Prominent leaders of the city preferred to file their nomination papers today, professed auspicious, in the District Magistrate’s office premises amid tight security arrangements. The weather remained pleasantly sunny till the afternoon. All the leaders had filed their nomination papers, except Bahadur Singh Rawat, city president, Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (P), who remained busy in giving statements to media persons and crossed the time limit for filing the nominations. Now he will file the papers tomorrow.

The prominent leaders who filed nomination papers were Manoj Sharma from the BSP from Mussoorie, Tanveer Ahmad from the BSP and Ravinder Kataria of the BJP for the Rajpur seat. Those who filed for the Dharampur seat were Prakash Suman Dhyani from the BJP, Dinesh Aggarwal from the Congress and Haji Salim Ahamed from the BSP.

Phool Singh Lodhi from the BSP was the lone candidate who came to file nominations from Doiwala; so was speaker Harbans Kapoor for Cantt seat.

For the Raipur seat, Maya Mohan Lakhera, Mohan Singh Rawat, both Independent candidates, Ajay Sud of the BSP and Trivender Singh Rawat, Cabinet minister and BJP candidate, filed their nomination papers.

The first one to drop in at the DM’s premises was Dinesh Aggarwal, who filed one set of papers at 11.30 and came again to file the rest. The way he came with fewer supporters for the first round spread the speculations that he hurried for a specific time, as must have been advised by astrologers, to brighten his winning chances. Aggarwal, who may strike a hat-trick with this election, said his priorities would be to beautify the state with better infrastructure, make it the most developed state and provide the fundamental amenities to voters of his segment.

The leaders continued to come with a crowd of their supporters, beating drums, airing slogans and dancing in the form of procession, which defied the modal code of conduct to some extent. Instead of the leader and four of his supporters, as was permissible, hordes of supporters barged inside the nomination room. They also raised slogans inside the office premises, though later on the police became alert and stopped them from doing so. BSP leader Tanveer Ahmed’s caravan came with blue flags and proceeded inside the premises but was stopped at a little distance from the nomination rooms. It was Dinesh Aggarwal and Trivender Singh Rawat’s rallies which were rated biggest among all.

The supporters of Aggarwal seemed genuine but those of Rawat appeared hired, as a lot of buses were seen parked outside his residence.

Speaker Harbans Kapoor came with his wife and son. Beaming with joy, Kapoor, who fought the Assembly elections eight times and registered victory six times, said: “Elections are the biggest festival of democracy, where the public either rewards or punishes the candidates, taking into account the sum total of their work done for the welfare of the people for a period of five years.” He said he was ready to get the verdict from the people and meet the challenges which would come his way.

Vinay Kataria, BJP candidate for Rajpur seat, who is fighting for the first time, said the organisation had rewarded him for his services spanning two decades by giving an opportunity to serve people through active politics.

Trivender Singh Rawat exuded confidence, saying that by seeing the surging enthusiasm among the public for BJP leaders, the party was most likely to return to power this time.

Ajay Sud of the BSP expressed diverse opinion, saying that the BSP was slated to do extremely well as people were aggrieved with both the BJP and the Congress for their tainted leaders and poor administration.

Tanveer Singh, BSP candidate, said his priorities would include checking migration, simplification of issuance of caste certificate and ownership rights to people of slum colonies.