Campaigning for the July 8 by-election in Sitarganj from where Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna is making a bid to enter the state Assembly comes to an end tomorrow. Electioneering for the by-election would close at 1700 hours tomorrow, said Uttarakhand Chief Election Officer Radha Raturi. Polling would be held on July 8 while the counting of votes will take place on July 11, she added. In the by-election, Bahuguna will be locked in a straight contest with BJP’s Prakash Pant, who has been cabinet minister as well as Speaker of the Assembly during the tenure of the previous BJP governments. Significantly, Pant had lost the recent Assembly election from Pithoragarh held early this year. The Sitarganj seat fell vacant after former BJP MLA Kiran Mandal quit in favour of Bahuguna “for the sake of development of his constituency”. Both the main political parties– Congress and BJP relied only on the state leadership for campaigning and national leaders were not invited to address public meetings. Along with state PCC Chief Yashpal Arya, Bahuguna himself shouldered the responsibility of campaigning. The two leaders have been camping in the constituency for the past few days. Arya said Congress is fighting the by-election on the same issues of development and unemployment eradication as it fought and won the recent Assembly elections. Claiming that people’s response in the public meetings and door to door campaigning is overwhelming, Arya said the people would vote for the Chief Minister for development of their area, which was plagued with problems of backwardness and unemployment.
(Source-IBN)