Narayan Ram Arya

Narayan Ram Arya (born 7 September 1952) is an Indian politician. Arya was a member of the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly from Gangolihat Assembly constituency in Pithoragarh district from 2002 to 2007 and again from 2012 till 2017 as a member of the Indian National Congress. He also served as a cabinet minister rank official in the state government during the tenure of N.D. Tiwari and Harish Rawat.

Education He is a post graduate and has a degree of M.A and B.Ed which he attained from the Kumaun University in 1982.

Political career Arya first entered the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly in 2002, winning the Gangolihat Assembly constituency as an Indian National Congress candidate by defeating BJP's Joga Ram Tamta with a margin of 470 votes. During his tenure, he served as a cabinet minister-rank official in the government led by Chief Minister N.D. Tiwari.

In the 2007 assembly elections, Arya lost to BJP candidate Joga Ram Tamta by 2,790 votes. He regained the seat in 2012, defeating BJP's Geeta Thakur by 7,880 votes and was again appointed as a cabinet minister level official in the Congress government. However, in the 2017 elections, he lost to BJP's Meena Gangola by a narrow margin of 805 votes. His defeat in 2017 was widely attributed to the independent candidate Khajan Chandra Guddu (who would go on to be the Congress candidate in 2022) who had secured 10,763 votes. In 2022, he left the Congress after being denied a ticket and decided to contest as an independent candidate from Gangolihaat but he later withdrew his candidature and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Electoral performance