Changing CMS, Covid management in focus
DEHRADUN: Although the government has changed every time Uttarakhand elected a new assembly since its formation in 2000, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hopes to buck the trend .
The BJP is contesting the polls, to take place on February 14, under the leadership of young chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami. The Congress is pinning its hopes on veteran leader and former chief minister Harish Rawat, the party’s chief election strategist.
The polls for the 70 member state assembly will not be an easy ride for the BJP, political observers said. There are a host of issues that challenge the party’s return to power – three chief ministers within a year, backlash of the priests community on the formation of the Char Dham Board (recently scrapped with an eye on the elections), farmer angst in the Terai areas, and the mismanagement of the 2021 Kumbh Mela including a fake Covid-testing scam.
During the festival, about 9.1 million people took a holy dip in
Haridwar, at least six million of them in April at the peak of the devastating second wave of the pandemic. Officials in many north Indian states traced local infection surges to Kumbh pilgrims. The Uttarakhand High Court criticised the government for allowing the massive gathering to take place.
On the political front, the Congress
has made the frequent change of chief ministers a major issue. One of its election slogans is Teen Tigada, Kaam Bigada, Uttarakhand Main Nahi Aayegi BJP Dobara (BJP messed up by changing three chief ministers, it won’t come to power again). The state has seen 11 chief ministers in 21 years of its existence.
“It is as insult to parliamentary tradition,” Rawat has said. “People of the state were not told why the chief ministers were changed.”
Dhami, 45-year-old from Kumaon, who was never even a minister before becoming chief minister, is now the BJP’S face to take on Harish Rawat.
The youngest chief minister of the state faces stiff resistance from some sections of the party, and people from other regions of the state, especially Garhwal, political observers said. During his tenure, party leader and cabinet minister Yashpal Arya joined the Congress, and another minister, Harak Singh Rawat, has been in the news over speculations of him leaving the party, since November. Both Dhami and Rawat are from the dominant Thakur caste in the state.
The Congress said it will target the BJP government for frequently changing chief ministers, the fake Covid-19 testing scam, high unemployment, increased migration and poor healthcare.
As many as 700 villages in the state are deserted and over 3.83 lakh people have left their villages in the 10 years prior to 2018, with half of them leaving search of livelihoods. “We will tell people how the BJP looted them, and there was no development in the state,” said Harish Rawat, the chief election strategist for the Congress.
However, the grand old party is riddled with major infighting and bickering in the state. Rawat’s attempt to project himself as chief ministerial candidate has not gone down well with many leaders including Devendra Yadav, the all India Congress committee’s in-charge for Uttarakhand.
The leader of opposition and former Uttarakhand Congress chief Pritam Singh has openly opposed Harish Rawat on several issues.
Despite the rhetoric on varied issues, unemployment will be a major issue in the elections, according to MM Semwal, professor of political science in Garhwal University.
“The BJP is trying to contest the elections on the development plank, but it will have to answer people on how many jobs were provided during last five years,” Semwal said.