Uttarakhand polls: Congress workers vandalise party office after ticket denial

Supporters of disappointed ticket-seekers of the Uttarakhand Congress on Sunday vandalised the party office in Dehradun and raised slogans against Chief Minister Harish Rawat after the candidates list was announced for the Assembly elections.

Shortly after the party declared its candidates for 63 seats in the poll-bound state, disgruntled workers supporting Congress leaders Ayendra Sharma and Navin Bhisht tore posters of Rawat and state chief Kishore Upadhyay at the Rajpur Road-based office.

The Congress announced Upadhyay as its candidate for the Sahaspur Assembly seat instead of Sharma and Suryakant Dhamsana was given ticket from Cantt seat instead of Bhisht.

Downplaying the incident, the Uttarakhand Congress chief said, “It happened at the heat of the moment and no action will be taken against the workers.”

Candidates were decided at a meeting of the party’s Central Election Committee chaired by Congress president Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi last night.

Assembly elections in 70-member Uttarakhand Assembly is scheduled to take place on February 15.

“The party high command will announce candidates for the remaining seven seats soon,” Upadhyay said.

Prominently Rawat will contest from two seats - Kichha and Haridwar Rural, Indira Hridyesh from Haldwani, Surendra Singh Negi from Kotdwar and Dinesh Aggarwal from Dharampur.