I can't shift to Dehradun Cantt seat: Raipur MLA

Jotirmay Thapliyal

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, April 7

Among nine Congress rebel MLAs, the rebellion by first-time Congress MLA from the Raipur Assembly Constituency of Dehradun Umesh Sharma ‘Kau’ did surprise many.

An ambitious politician, Umesh, who rose from the civic politics to become a legislator in the last Assembly elections in 2012, emerged a giant killer. He defeated senior BJP leader and former minister Trivendra Singh Rawat by a narrow margin of 474 votes.

In his first public talk after the rebellion, Umesh openly accused previous Chief Minister Harish Rawat of directing him to contest from the Dehradun Cantt Assembly seat in the 2017 Assembly elections and leave his Raipur constituency. He said there was no point in switching to the Dehradun Cantt Assembly when he had already undertaken mammoth development works in the Raipur constituency.

Umesh has nurtured high political ambitions and that was the reason he contested the first and second Assembly elections in the state as an Independent candidate though being in the Congress, he was denied the party ticket. Though he lost on both occasions, he managed to bag handsome votes. As a Congress rebel, he was instrumental in ensuring the defeat of Congress candidate Virendra Mohan Uniyal in the Raipur constituency in the first Assembly elections in 2002.

Even in the last Assembly elections in 2012, Umesh managed to get the Congress ticket from the Raipur seat, sidelining former Congress minister and party heavyweight Hira Singh Bisht, who was vying for ticket from the same.

Despite a lot of opposition from Bisht, one of the senior-most Congress leaders in the state, Umesh bagged the party ticket for Raipur and managed to win the poll against all odds.

His strength comes from the fact that he is credited with focusing development on slums. However, many criticise him for setting up new slums in Dehradun. Before getting elected to the state Assembly for the first time in the 2012 elections, Umesh was a Deputy Mayor in the Dehradun Municipal Corporation. He had been a councillor in the corporation.