Koshiyari, Pohriyal among 52 BJP candidates for Uttarakhand polls

New Delhi, Jan 19 (UNI) Former Chief Minister Bhagat Singh Koshiyari and former minister Ramesh Pokhriyal figure in the first list of 52 candidates announced by the BJP for the February 21 Uttarakhnad Assembly elections.

In the BJP Central Election Committee meeting, chaired by Party president Rajnath Singh, the names of 52 candidates, including seven women, were decided.

Mr Koshiari is again being fielded from Kapkot assembly constituency whereas former Minister Mr Pokhriyal has been given the ticket for the Thalisain constituency from Paudi. Nityanand Swami who lost elections last time from Lakshman Chowk assembly constituency in Dehradun will be contesting from the same seat.

Deepti Rawat former General Secretary of the Delhi University Students Union is among the new faces in the list.

The Committee, which met for three hours, would meet again on January 23 to finalise the candidature for the remaining seats of the 70-member state Assembly.

BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said the meeting was attended by all CEC members, including former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, former Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and former party President M Venkaiah Naidu.

Among the 19 sitting MLAs, the BJP has decided to field 18 from the same constituencies that they earlier contested from. Notable among them include Harbans Kapur from Dehradun, Trivendra Singh Rawat from Doiwala, Chandrashekhar from Bhagwanpur, Sureshchandra Jain from Roorkee and Vijaya Bathadwal from Yamkeshwar.

Other sitting MLAs contesting from the BJP include Mahendra Bhatt from Nandprayag, Anil Nautiyal from Karnprayag, Govindlal Shah and from Pindar. Ajay Bhatt from Ranikhet and Kailash Sharma from Almora are also being repeated.

Harbhajan Singh Cheema from Kashipur, Arvind Pandey from Bajpur, Prakash Pant from Pithoragarh and Bishen Singh Chuphal from Deedeehat constituency have also got the nod to contest from BJP platform.

UNI