BJP leadership is looking at the RSS to pick candidates for 2024 Lok Sabha polls in five constituencies of Uttarakhand and
Party’s national general secretary BL Santhosh was in town to hold deliberations on the matter, sources said.
Santhosh, in his two-day visit to Dehradun, held intensive consultations and feedback meetings with the RSS leaders to find new faces on 3-4 seats.
The BJP national general secretary held several rounds of meetings with RSS leaders and state party president Mahendra Bhatt to deliberate over possible names where party leadership wants to field new faces.
Sources in the state BJP informed that Santhosh’s visit focussed on meeting mainly RSS leaders including Prant Pracharak Shailendra Kumar, kshetra pracharak Mahendra and office bearers of Sangh’s state unit. Most of the discussions over selection of candidates concentrated on Pauri, Haridwar and Almora parliamentary constituencies.
Senior BJP leaders in the state informed that BJP’s central leadership was looking for new faces on these seats. According to them, Santhosh wanted feedback from RSS state chief Shailendra Kumar, Regional RSS in charge Mahinder, state BJP chief Mahendra Bhatt, party general secretaries Ajay Kumar and Aditya Kothari.
In his two-day visit on February 21 and February 22, Mr Santhosh held his concluding consultations with Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and other RSS office bearers along with heads of Sangh’s frontal organisations.
His first day meetings were held at Dehradun RSS headquarters while the second day venue was BJP state office. On Thursday, Santhosh met several BJP leaders to discuss strategy on how to improvise vote shares in Lok Sabha polls.
“Our discussion was held on organisational activities across the state. The national general secretary was informed about plans to contact more than 10 lakh beneficiaries of the central government schemes and about informing them about all good works being done by the central and state governments for them.
”Beneficiary contact campaign will be taken up from March 1 to March 3,” said BJP state media in charge and spokesperson Manbir Singh Chauhan sharing information as to Santhosh’s meeting on the second day.
On candidate selection, Chauhan said “State parliamentary board will finalise its panels of candidates on all five seats on February 26. However, the final call will be taken by the central leadership and central parliamentary board.”
A senior BJP leader in Dehradun informed that for Pauri Lok Sabha constituency names discussed included sitting MP Tirath Singh Rawat and former chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat apart from that of a cabinet minister in the Dhami government.
The cabinet minister’s name was suggested by the chief minister himself, he said. Interestingly, the minister’s name was also taken up for Haridwar parliamentary seat currently represented by former CM and former Union minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, adding that a couple of other names were also discussed for Haridwar.
Feedback deliberation by Santhosh was also for a new face on Almora Lok Sabha seat, presently held by BJP leader Ajay Tamta who was Union Textile Minister in Narendra Modi regime’s first tenure.
Santhosh also discussed a possible change of face for Nainital parliamentary seat held by Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt, sources said.