A fourth Rawat gets ready for poll debut, Congress hopes in Haridwar lie with former CM’s son

In Uttarakhand Congress, former Chief Minister Harish Rawat’s family is still the pre-eminent force and the coming Lok Sabha elections provide it with another chance to underline that. Among the candidates the Congress has fielded in the hill state is Rawat’s son Virendra who will be in the fray from Haridwar.

Virendra is the fourth member of the Rawat family to venture into electoral politics. Rawat’s wife Renuka Rawat contested the Lok Sabha elections in 2004 and 2014 from the Almora and Haridwar seats, respectively, losing both times, while their daughter Anupama contested from Haridwar Rural in the 2022 Assembly elections, successfully defeating sitting BJP MLA Swami Yatishwaranand. However, in the same election, Rawat lost the Lalkuan seat to the BJP’s Mohan Singh Bisht. The election was crucial for the former CM after his electoral setbacks from the Haridwar Rural and Kichha seats in the 2017 Assembly polls.

Harish Rawat’s younger son Anand, meanwhile, is involved with the Youth Congress – he has served as its state president – and at present is a state Congress general secretary. State Congress president Karan Mahara is Rawat’s brother-in-law.

The perception in political circles in the state is that Rawat forced the Congress leadership’s hand to give Virendra the poll ticket. Some senior Congress leaders said given Virendra’s lack of experience, they would have preferred Rawat contest from Haridwar, a seat the party lost in the last two Lok Sabha polls

But defending his son, the former CM has said Virendra was “selected based on his longstanding dedication and hard work within the Congress”. In a Facebook post on Sunday, he wrote, “The party’s high command meticulously gathered information. Upon confirming that the