Former Chief Minister Major General (Retd) BC Khanduri is among the tallest leaders within the political historical past of Uttarakhand. In 2022, along with his loyalist now different events, his daughter Ritu Khanduri Bhushan is now combating a battle her father as soon as misplaced.
Khanduri had first entered state politics as a Union minister with reward for implementing the grand National Highways Development Plan of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee authorities. A Brahmin, he was supported by the state’s different dominant caste, the Thakurs, at the same time as his army background helped amidst Uttarakhand’s giant protection inhabitants.
In 2007, in Uttarakhand’s second meeting election, Khanduri was named chief minister by the BJP when it received and fashioned the federal government. However, just a few years later, after shedding the Lok Sabha elections, it changed Khanduri with Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’. The latter, in flip, lasted for 2 years because the BJP, below strain from the social gathering, who coined the slogan “Khanduri hai zoruri (need Khanduri)”, introduced Khanduri again 5 months for the 2012 meeting elections.
Despite flip-flops on the prime, the BJP had come inside strolling distance of victory – a efficiency largely credited to Khanduri. However, the Congress fashioned the federal government with one seat greater than the BJP. Insulting Khanduri’s damage, he himself misplaced from Kotdwar to Congress’s Surendra Singh Negi, reaffirming Uttarakhand’s perception that its incumbent CM by no means retains his seat.
Since then, Khanduri is sort of again within the background. Now 89, he’s battling well being points and largely stays at dwelling.
In 2017, the BJP withdrew Kotdar, with Harak Singh Rawat defeating Negi. While Harak is now within the Congress, and has not received a ticket, Negi is once more within the operating as a Congress candidate in opposition to Khanduri’s daughter Ritu.
While Ritu had received from Yamkeshwar in 2017, the BJP shifted her to Kotdwar this time, making it a status battle for the Khandooris.
BJP sources stated that Ritu was not very proud of the change. Yamkeshwar would have been a protected seat for them, which was all the time received by feminine Brahmin candidates. However, BJP selected Congress’s turncoat Renu Bisht for this seat and Ritu was not able to protest.
Also, sources stated, inner surveys point out that Ritu was not extremely popular in Yamkeshwar, which is seen as spending most of her time away. Ritu’s husband is senior IAS officer and Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, who is among the key officers within the Centre’s anti-Covid efforts.
Ritu says that her father is as related as ever in Uttarakhand as he has labored and developed for the state. “I want to continue that tradition. My politics over the past five years has been about development,” she says, including that she typically consults him.
Negi might be a problem, as will the seat change, Ritu accepts, she is up for it.
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
