Congress picks veteran Ambrish Kumar despite opposition by 15 leaders

Sandeep Rawat

Tribune News Service

Haridwar, January 22

Veteran leader and former Haridwar legislator Ambrish Kumar has been named the Congress candidate from Ranipur-BHEL Assembly segment.

Ambrish Kumar bagged the ticket against odds. Chief Minister Harish Rawat preferred the seasoned politician even though five party leaders had submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister in December urging him not to give ticket to Ambrish Kumar.

The party leaders, led by women leader Kiran Singh, labour leader Rajbeer Singh Chauhan, Sewa Dal office-bearer OP Chauhan and youth leader Ram Vishal Dev, had termed Ambrish an outsider, demanding minimum three-year active party membership mandatory for ticket aspirants.

Notably, Ambrish Kumar had lost by a slender margin of 1,985 votes as Congress candidate and became a legislator in the late 90s on the Samajwadi Party ticket.

Later, he contested the parliamentary elections of 2009 on Samajwadi Party ticket against Congress candidate Harish Rawat, who won with record 1.74 lakh votes. Ambrish Kumar then left the Samajwadi Party owing to factionism within the party and formed the Rashtriya Krantikari Morcha.

Prior to the 2012 Assembly elections, he joined Congress but was denied the party ticket at the last moment, with the party opting for Rajbeer Chauhan, who came fourth. Ambrish had contested as an independent bagging 19,625 votes, coming at second place.

Later, he joined the Congress again and since then has been actively participating in Congress programmes, protests, conventions and also held a couple of major party rallies and marches which saw mass participation.

This went in his favour as Harish Rawat wanted a candidate with winning quotient and mass appeal across all sections of the society.

Now, it will not be an easy task for BJP’s Aadesh Chauhan as last time Ambrish Kumar had contested as an independent and came second but this time, apart from his personal political clout, he would be getting Congress party’s traditional and workers’ vote too.