"Harak Singh Rawat is popular in the constituency and is known to deliver the unexpected," Congress leader Shobha Bahuguna said in Kotdwar, referring to his unexpected victory over strong BJP rival Matbar Singh Kandari in Rudraprayag in the 2012 assembly polls.
"Apart from being very popular among the youth in Pauri- Garhwal, Harak Singh is also the master of poll engineering, known to be instrumental in the wins of many Zilla Panchayat candidates," poll analyst Himanshu Baduni said.
Another factor which may work in favour of Harak Singh Rawat is his being from the Thakur community which constitutes 60 per cent of the constituency's total population.
The Thakurs of Pauri who felt a void after Satpal Maharaj's (also a Thakur) defection to BJP see an alternative in Harak Singh Rawat and may help him take on Khanduri, a Brahmin by caste.
However, Khanduri's appeal transcends the barriers of caste. He enjoys the image of a relatively apolitical leader who means business with a focus on development.
People all over the state remember his two tenures as the state's chief minister and his stint as a Union minister in Vajpayee's cabinet as periods of substantial development in Uttarakhand.
They remember him as the cleanest chief minister who was the first to introduce a tough Lokayukta bill modelled on the vision of Anna Hazare's Lokpal.
