Uttarakhand: Modi dominates discourse — in campaigns of BJP and Oppn Congress

Going by the 2017 Assembly election results — the BJP won 57 of the 70 seats while the Congress won 11 — the BJP seems to have the advantage. The Congress had won all five Lok Sabha seats in Uttarakhand in 2009, but lost all five to the BJP in 2014.

BJP supporters in Dehradun. (Express photo by Virender Singh Negi)

As campaigning is on in full swing in Uttarakhand, BJP candidates are seeking votes in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi while the Congress candidates are focused on targeting the Modi government.

Going by the 2017 Assembly election results — the BJP won 57 of the 70 seats while the Congress won 11 — the BJP seems to have the advantage. The Congress had won all five Lok Sabha seats in Uttarakhand in 2009, but lost all five to the BJP in 2014.

In their campaigns, the BJP candidates can be heard reiterating development-related work done by the government in the past five years under central and state schemes. The Congress candidates are targeting the Modi government for allegedly working in favour of a few businesspersons and industrialists, apart from other issues like farmers, demonetisation, GST and the Rafale deal.

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Modi has addressed two rallies in the state — in Rudrapur, which falls under Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar seat — and state capital Dehradun. In the Rudrapur rally, which was aimed at garnering support for the BJP from the Kumaon belt, the PM targeted Congress leader and former chief minister Harish Rawat, who is the Congress candidate from Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar seat and is contesting against Uttarakhand BJP president Ajay Bhatt. Modi alleged that the Uttarakhand government, with Harish Rawat as CM, did not let him undertake development work when he became PM.

According to sources in the Congress, Modi’s comments were being seen as an effort to dissuade people from voting for Rawat, as defeating the senior Congress leader in Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar seat was an uphill task for the BJP.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi has already addressed a rally in Dehradun and will be addressing three more on Saturday — in Srinagar under Pauri Garhwal seat, Almora, and Haridwar seats.

Of the five seats, the position of the Congress is weakest in Haridwar, where Congress leader Ambrish Kumar is contesting against sitting BJP MP Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank. Ambrish, who won the Assembly election from Haridwar in 1996 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls as a SP candidate, has never won an election in Uttarakhand. Nishank, a former Uttarakhand CM, has served three terms in the UP Assembly and three terms in the Uttarakhand Assembly.

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In Pauri Garhwal seat, too, the BJP has an advantage over the Congress, since Congress candidate Manish Khanduri, son of former Uttarakhand chief minister and sitting BJP MP from Pauri Major General (retd.) B C Khanduri, is new to politics. He is now banking on the Congress vote bank and his father’s reputation. Manish’s opponent is former Uttarakhand BJP president Tirath Singh Rawat, who is also his father’s protégé.