Will Congress pierce through the BJP’s poll armour called Modi in Uttarakhand?

Uttarakhand, since it came into being almost two and half decades back, has seen four parliamentary elections – 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019 – and this will be its fifth. The hill state will go to ballot on April 19, the first phase of parliamentary elections, as announced by the Election Commission.

The state, which was carved out of Uttar Pradesh on November 9, 2000, sends five parliamentarians to the Lok Sabha and one to the Rajya Sabha. The five constituencies which both the BJP and Congress will contest are Tehri Garhwal, Garhwal, Almora, Nainital and Haridwar.

UCC card

Uttarakhand hogged the headlines when the Pushkar Singh Dhami-led BJP government on February 7 passed the Uttarakhand Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill, the first of its kind, which got the presidential assent four days ago. The law, aimed at pandering to the Hindu voter’s sentiments, is considered to serve as a template for a federal law on the same lines.

A day later, on February 8, the state saw its first communal riot in recent memory at Haldwani, a small town in Nainital district, which left six dead, after the local administration razed a mosque, allegedly built on encroached government land, to the ground.

Number of voters

On election day, 83.21 lakh voters, of which 43.08 lakh are men and 40.12 lakh women, will cast their ballot in Uttarakhand, according to the data released by the State Election Commission on Saturday (March 15). The state has seen a steady rise in the number of voters. In the 2019 elections, the number of voters stood at 77.65 lakh to which the state has added five lakh new voters to take the tally to 83.21 lakh. Of these, 1.45 lakh are young voters.

In this election, the Election Commission (EC) has made arrangements for home voting to ensure participation of the elderly voters, above 85 years of age, whose number stands at 65,177. Voters with more than 40 per cent disability will also be provided with home voting facility.

Political landscape

Although historically the loyalty of voters is divided between the Congress and the BJP, there has been a tectonic shift towards the right with the ascension of the BJP at the centre under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The reason behind this shift is plain and simple: Uttarakhand is overwhelmingly dominated by upper castes who constitute 63 per cent of its population.

Like in the rest of the country, the saffron party fights and wins every election in the state in the name of Prime Minister Modi.

Modi is credited with gifting the state projects like the Char Dam road project worth ₹12,000 crore, which he launched in December 2016 in Dehradun, and the Rishikesh–Karnaprayag railway line to link the Char Dham – the four major pilgrim centres of Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath – worth around ₹16,000 crore in 2015.

The Congress, which was able to form the government in 2002 and 2012, with the BJP riding to power in between, has now been reduced to play second fiddle, with the BJP securing two successive wins in 2017 and 2022 state assembly elections, in Modi’s name only.

Will ‘Modi magic’ work in 2024?

Riding the ‘Modi magic’, the BJP won all the five parliamentary seats in 2019 Lok Sabha elections, completely decimating the Congress. Even a seasoned Congress leader like former Chief Minster Harish Rawat failed miserably at the hustings.

The BJP has announced its candidates for all five constituencies: Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah from Tehri Garhwal, Anil Baluni from Pauri Garhwal, Ajay Tamta from Almora (reserved), Ajay Bhatt from Nainital and Trivendra Singh Rawat from Haridwar. Striking a caste balance by choosing two new faces, a Brahmin and a Thakur, it has dropped former Chief Ministers Ramesh Pokhariyal ‘Nishank’ and Tirath Singh Rawat.

Conundrum for Congress

Prime Minister Modi is set to address five public rallies, one in each constituency, according to sources. “This is enough for the BJP to secure all its seats and will make a clean sweep with a higher margin this election,” observes Yogesh Kumar, 50, a senior journalist based in Dehradun.

Congress, on the other hand, has slim chances of even putting up a good fight, he says. “First and foremost, the Congress lacks an organisational set up at the grass roots and a strong cadre to boot. Most importantly, it does not have a face, either, around which to run its campaign,” Kumar adds.

The Congress has so far announced three candidates, Pradeep Tamta from Almora, Ganesh Godiyal from Pauri Garhwal and Jot Singh Gunsola, two-time former Mussoorie MLA, from Tehri Garhwal.

Tamta, a former Rajya Sabha member and veteran Congress leader, may not find it a smooth sailing, according to Kumar, while Godiyal too has a little chance to make it against Baluni. “Issues like UCC and electoral bonds will have little impact,” he adds.

'Congress may put up strong fight'

However, Islam Husain, 69, a senior journalist and a Gandhian from Haldwani, is optimistic about the Congress putting up a good fight against the BJP in Uttarakhand, provided it is able to win over the borderline voters, who are not in less numbers. “The core Hindu voters are with the BJP undoubtedly. The Muslims are anti-BJP, and it all depends how the Congress puts up a fight. It will have to win the borderline voters over to its side,” Husain says.

Muslims constitute 14 per cent of the state’s population.

“It also depends how strong the Congress candidates are,” Husain adds.

Some days back, Husain, along with some other friends, conducted a survey to gauge the mood of the electorate in the Nainital constituency. Surprisingly, the survey found former minister Yashpal Arya, who is now back in Congress, to be in a strong position to give a good fight to BJP candidate Ajay Bhatt. “But it may put the Congress in a dilemma as giving tickets to two Dalit candidates may not go down well with the state unit of the party,” Husain adds.

The Congress is yet to announce its candidates for Nainital and Haridwar constituencies.

The jury is still out.