Uttarakhand Keycandidate Detail

The defection of former state Congress president Kishore Upadhyay to the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) has changed the election dynamics in the Tehri assembly constituency. In 2017, Dhan Singh Negi of the BJP had won Tehri by defeating Dinesh Dhanai (Independent) by a margin of 6,840 votes, but with the denial of ticket this time, he switched camps and joined the BJP. Dhanai, who contested as an Independent candidate even in 2012, won the seat by defeating Upadhyay. According to political experts, Upadhyay had publicly blamed former chief minister and Congress veteran Harish Rawat for engineering his defeat from Sahaspur in 2017 and was trying to end his political career. He joined the BJP on the penultimate day for the filing of nominations.