Tehri Garhwal Lok Sabha 2019: Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah wins with healthy numbers for BJP

Result Update: BJP's Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah defeated Congress' Pritam Singh by 300586 votes. 

Tehri Garhwal is one of the five parliamentary constituencies in the northern hill state of Uttarakhand which will vote in the first phase of the general election on April 11. The constituency which came into existence in 1957 has been with the BJP since 1991 except for a five-year period between 2007 and 2012. 

Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah of the BJP won the seat for the first time in 2012 bye-election following the resignation of Vijay Bahuguna who became the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand following Congress' win the state elections. She defeated Vijay Bahuguna's son Saket. Coincidentally, Vijay Bahuguna had first won the seat in a bye-election in 2007 when sitting MP Manabendra Shah, who held the seat from 1991, passed away. 

Bahuguna retained the seat in 2009 elections by defeating shooter-turned-politician Jaspal Rana of BJP by over 52,000 votes when the Congress swept the state and won all five Parliamentary seats. The voter turnout this time was 50.38 per cent.

In a role reversal, all five seats went to the BJP in 2014 and Shah defeated Saket Bahuguna by close to two lakh votes. The voter turnout in the constituency was 57.44 per cent.

This year, the Congress has fielded Pritam Singh and Satyapal has been named the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate. They will face sitting BJP MP Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah, who was born in Nepal but married into the royal family of Tehri Garhwal.

Tehri Garhwal Parliamentary constituency is made up of 14 assembly segments in three districts -  Dehradun, Tehri Garhwal and Uttarkashi - namely Chakrata, Dehradun Cantt, Mussoorie, Raipur, Rajpur Road, Sahaspur, Vikasnagar of Dehradun district; Dhanaulti
Ghansali, Pratapnagar and Tehri of Tehri Garhwal district; Gangotri, Purola and Yamunotri of Uttarkashi district.

Tribal voters in the area are a huge factor and are often deciding votes. The presence of cow conservationist Gopal Mani, who is contesting as an independent, has made the battle interesting. 

The polling in Tehri Garhwal will be held in the first phase of Lok Sabha elections on April 11. The results of the Lok Sabha election 2019 will be declared on May 23.