Thursday, 10 February 2022 | Gajendra Singh Negi | Gopeshwar
Badrinath assembly constituency is one out of three assembly constituencies of Chamoli district and is among the most prestigious seats in Uttarakhand. Spread in a large area on both sides of the Alaknanda river which originates in the Satopanth glacier, the assembly constituency has three administrative blocks, Dasoli, Pokhri and Joshimath. Apart from the district headquarter Gopeshwar the banners and posters of the political parties are not visible in the small towns and villages of the constituency.
This time the BJP has reposed its faith in the sitting MLA Mahendra Bhatt from the constituency while Congress has fielded former cabinet minister Rajendra Bhandari. Though the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has fielded Bhagwati Prasad Maindoli there is a direct contest between the Congress and BJP on this seat.
Sunil Negi a resident of Gopeshwar said that in absence of specialist doctors the people of the area are still forced to go to Dehradun. He said that the then chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat had promised to set up a CT scan machine in the Gopeshwar district hospital but it is yet to be installed. A local hotelier Ajay Shah said that the tourism in the area would get a boost by broadening the Chopta – Gopeshwar link road which will divert the tourists directly from Kedarnath to Badrinath via Gopeshwar.
In the elections of 2017, Mahendra Bhatt of BJP had defeated the then Cabinet Minister Rajendra Bhandari by a margin of 2,634 votes. Bhatt got 26,676 votes while Rajendra Bhandari received 24,042 votes.
This time Bhandari is seeking votes on the works done by him during his tenure of 2012-17. He is also targeting Bhatt for doing nothing in the last five years. Mahendra Bhatt told The Pioneer that his biggest achievement is to connect all the villages of the constituency with roads. He said that only seven villages in the constituency are yet to be connected by road. He cites the posting of doctors and teachers in the hospitals and schools as the achievement of the BJP government. Bhatt is hoping that the feel good generated by the construction of the all-weather road and the ongoing Rishikesh- Karnprayag rail link would fetch him votes.
The spokesman of Chamoli unit of Congress Vikas Jugran told this correspondent that the only thing which was constructed during the tenure of the BJP MLA Bhatt is the building of the BJP office in Gopeshwar. He said that Bhatt is claiming to construct roads in the area but the fact that all the roads which were constructed were approved during the previous regime. Jugran added that the CT scan machine which was promised by Tirath Singh Rawat was later installed in Khatima hospital.
Badrinath Assembly Fact file
Polling stations – 207
Male voters – 52,626
Female voters – 49,499
