Congress-PDF Jointly Field Pradeep Tamta For Rajya Sabha From Uttarakhand

Dehradun: Burying their differences, ruling allies Congress and PDF in Uttarakhand today jointly fielded a candidate for the Rajya Sabha election with former Lok Sabha member from Almora, Pradeep Tamta filing his nomination on behalf of the alliance.

Mr Tamta's candidature had earlier raised eyebrows in the PDF which was expecting a Rajya Sabha seat in recognition of its "consistent support" to Chief Minister Harish Rawat during the recent political crisis in the state which finally saw him win the floor test in the state Assembly and get reinstated as chief minister.

However, last minute confabulations with the Congress high command assuaged ruffled feathers with PDF deciding to stay out of the fray and field a joint candidate with Congress for the Upper House of Parliament.

Mr Tamta filed his nomination in three sets and had seven legislators of the Congress and ally PDF as his proposers in two sets each and eight in the third, Vidhan Sabha Secretary Jagdish Chandra said.

Apart from Mr Tamta, two others also filed their nominations as Independents on the last day of nomination today including Gita Thakur and Anil Goel, he said, adding they had one proposer each.

Chief Minister Harish Rawat, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Indira Hridayesh, AICC general secretary Mukul Wasnik, PCC president Kishore Upadhyay and a host of party leaders and legislators apart from those of the PDF were in attendance as Mr Tamta filed his nomination.

Earlier in the day, Mr Tamta, who was declared as the party candidate on Saturday, was handed the party symbol by Mr Upadhyay.

Ally PDF, which had earlier announced the candidature of Dinesh Dhanai for the Rajya Sabha seat as it was miffed over Congress not taking it into confidence before deciding to field Mr Tamta, finally decided not to field a candidate after the intervention of the Congress high command.

Soon after his nomination, Mr Rawat held a press conference at the Vidhan Sabha in the presence of Congress and PDF leaders to thank the latter for deciding to stay out of the fray and extending its support to the party candidate.

He also admitted that he had committed a "mistake" by not taking PDF into confidence before announcing Mr Tamta as the party s candidate for the Upper House.

"It was a mistake on my part not to take our PDF colleagues into confidence before Tamta's candidature was finalised."

"I regret that and have decided to develop a mechanism which does not leave scope for any communication gap with allies regarding major decisions in future," Mr Rawat said.
PDF convenor Mantri Prasad Naithani said the front decided to stay out of the fray after speaking to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and it was mutually agreed upon to walk together for the sake of unity.

Even Cabinet Minister Yashpal Arya who was said to have been "not quite" okay with Mr Tamta's candidature appeared to have come round to the party's view after a meeting with Ms Gandhi and Ahmad Patel in New Delhi yesterday.

"I have never gone against the party and would accept any decision taken by the leadership with alacrity. I had some questions which I have communicated to the high command."

"I am confident that Tamta will strongly raise issues related to the development of the state in the Rajya Sabha as he had done in the Lok Sabha," he said.