Dehradun (Uttarakhand): The BJP has announced candidates for three of the five seats in Uttarakhand in the Lok Sabha elections. All three candidates are sitting MPs.
Mala Rajya Lakshmi Shah has been fielded from Tehri Garhwal, Ajay Tamta from Almora and Union minister Ajay Bhatt from the Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar seat. The names of the remaining two seats namely Garhwal and Haridwar have not been declared yet.
Senior BJP leader, Ajay Bhatt, serves as the MoS of Defence. Originally hailing from Ranikhet area of Almora district, Bhatt has a long political career which started after he completed his LLB from Almora College.
In 1985, Bhatt joined the youth wing of the BJP and began his career from Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. Soon he became a member of the working committee of the Uttar Pradesh unit and was in-charge of the organisation in Almora district. He was also made a member of the BJP state executive committee in the same year.
Bhatt also played an important and active role during the Uttarakhand state movement. After which, he contested the assembly elections in 1996 and won. He also succeeded in becoming an MLA after the establishment of the state. He won in 2012 assembly elections when Congress formed the government and was elected as the leader of the opposition. Later he even became the state president of Uttarakhand BJP.
In 2019, the BJP high command expressed confidence in him and gave him ticket from Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar Lok Sabha seat. Bhatt won the election with a huge margin and was elected MP for the first time. The party high command has once again expressed confidence in him and fielded him from the same seat.
Likewise Bhatt, Ajay Tamta has been fielded from the same seat. BJP has given him a ticket for Almora seat for the third time. Tamta is currently a member of the 17th Lok Sabha and had earlier been an MLA from the state.
Born in 1972 in Almora, Tamta has a long political career. In 2007, Ajay was elected as a member of the Tamta Assembly for the first time and served as an MLA till 2012. During the BJP-led government in Uttarakhand, he was given a cabinet berth. In 2012, he once again won the assembly elections but could serve as an MLA for only two years because BJP fielded him for the Lok Sabha elections that was held in 2014.
After winning, Tamta was appointed as the Union Minister of State for Textiles. In 2019, BJP once again fielded him from Almora seat and this is for the third time that the party has fielded him from Almora Lok Sabha seat.
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