Former MLA, Pradesh Committee Chief Ganesh Godiyal Gets Nominated From Pauri Garhwal By Congress (Photo on X Ganesh Godiyal @UKGaneshGodiyal)

Ganesh Godiyal, the Congress candidate from Uttarakhand”s Pauri Garhwal Lok Sabha constituency is the former state party president and MLA. Notably, days after the announcement of his ticket by the grand old party, Mr Godiyal grabbed the headline as he received a summon from the central agency on March 19.

The Income Tax Department sent the summons to the Pauri Garhwal Congress candidate asking him to appear in person at its office in Thane, Maharashtra on March 22. Talking about the summon, the Congress candidate said that he received a total of three notices; one in his name, one in his wife’s name and the other one in the name of a firm he worked for before 2018. The congress candidate has criticised the move terming it as a “handiwork” of the BJP to harm him, adding that it was carried out at the behest of the saffron party, which was famous for using central agencies to target political opponents.

Mr Godiyal has been contesting elections since 2002 in two different assembly constituencies – Thalisain and Srinagar. He has served as an legislator from both the constituencies, making him a two term MLA. However, the Lok Sabha nomination will mark the 51-year-old’s foray into the national politics. He has declared his assets as four crore and liabilities as two crore and has not been involved in criminal cases so far.

Mr Godiyal’s electoral performance as an MLA seemed satisfactory for the Congress party as he won two different seats and gave tough competition to the BJP candidates in all five assembly elections he contested. With the party picking him for Pauri Garhwal, it trusts the former MLA to confront the BJP which has improved its performance after wresting power from Congress in 2014. The BJP’s incumbent MP from the seat Tirath Singh Rawat won the 2019 general election, accumulating more than 68 per cent of the votes