HIMALAYAN LANDSLIDE
AFTER ITS TORTUOUS ATTEMPTS TO UNSEAT THE HARISH RAWAT GOVERNMENT LAST YEAR, THE BJP FINALLY TAKES THE STRAIGHTFORWARD ROUTE TO POWER
Eventually, the BJP’s move to take Congress rebels into its fold paid off in Uttarakhand. The party won 57 of the 70 seats in the state, the incumbent Congress reduced to a mere 11. It was a respectable victory in more ways than one for the BJP, especially after its botched attempt to wrest power from the Congress a year earlier. That failed floor test, in fact, became the starting point for the party’s campaign in the state, that ended in an impressive 45 per cent vote share in the state.
The BJP campaign strategy was simple—discredit the Congress’s one-man army of Harish Rawat and highlight play up the good governance of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre. So, whether it was the bold decisions of the surgical strikes and demonetisation or pro-poor schemes such as Ujjwala and Jan Dhan accounts, the BJP played it to full advantage.
National party president Amit Shah personally monitored the campaign, using the state organisation and its workers to mobilise crowds for public meetings. The party relied on central leaders rather than old faces like B.C. Khanduri, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank or Bhagat Singh Koshyari to do the campaigning. Union ministers and election in-charges of the state J.P. Nadda and Dharmendra Pradhan worked with central party in-charge of the state Shyam Jaju. While the central leaders carried the BJP message to different parts of the state, Shah himself and the prime minister stepped in to lend the campaign an edge.
The BJP went on the offensive from the very start, taking on the Congress over the various scams during its rule, be it the polyhouse scam, the seeds scam or the infamous flood relief irregularities, all during former CM Vijay Bahuguna’s tenure. Once Bahuguna joined the BJP, the Congress tried to deflect the blame on the BJP, but it didn’t stick. At the same time, Rawat’s attempt to rake up reduced funding in centrally funded schemes was countered with data.
This has been the worst and most disappointing election for the Congress in the four assembly elections since the state came into being. Hiring election strategist Kishor did not do the party any good either. Accepting responsibility for this defeat, Rawat termed it as Modi’s revolution, but also touted it as the miracle of the EVM. Rawat himself lost from both the Haridwar rural and Kichha seats. Party president Kishore Upadhyaya and seven of his cabinet colleagues too were defeated.
Former CM Koshyari termed this victory as a mandate against what he called the the corrupt, scandalous, autocratic and arbitrary Congress government.
For the BJP, the defeat of state party president Ajay Bhatt from the Ranikhet assembly constituency did come as a blow, but it was attributed more to the revolt of one of its workers. However, of the 11 rebel Congress MLAs who went over to the BJP, seven of the nine who had contested the election won. The 10th rebel, Vijay Bahuguna, had fielded his son Saurabh from the Sitarganj seat, who won. Similarly, it was 11th rebel Amrita Rawat’s husband, former Union minister Satpal Maharaj, who contested the election and won. The three BJP legislators—Dan Singh Bhandari, Shailendra Singh Rawat and Bhimlal Arya—who had revolted and gone over to the Congress, lost.