By Arun Pratap Singh
Garhwal Post Bureau
Dehradun, 7 May: With the Uttarakhand Assembly elections scheduled early next year gradually beginning to shape the state’s political discourse, the Congress has intensified efforts to revive and consolidate its organisation in the hill state. In this backdrop, the current five-day Garhwal tour of Congress general secretary and Uttarakhand in-charge Kumari Selja is being viewed not merely as a routine organisational exercise but as an attempt by the party high command to assess the ground situation, energise the cadre and streamline a faction-ridden state unit ahead of the crucial 2027 Assembly battle.
It may be recalled that Selja arrived in Dehradun yesterday and was welcomed by top brass of State Congress leaders including Ganesh Godiyal and Leader of the Opposition Yashpal Arya at Dehradun Airport. Today, she held a road rally in Srinagar (Pauri) and tomorrow she is scheduled to visit Kedarnath temple and on 10 May, she is scheduled to offer prayers at Badrinath shrine. Usually, the national level Congress leaders have avoided visiting Hindu shrines in Uttarakhand while on a political tour. Whether Selja’s proposed visit to Kedarnath is an outcome of the recently held assembly polls in several states, will however remain a matter of political speculation but it does point towards possible changes in Congress politics which has been in past two decades focussed on aggressive minority appeasement.
This apart, the political observers point out that visits of senior Congress leaders to Uttarakhand are expected to become increasingly frequent in the coming months as the party seeks to regain lost political ground against the ruling BJP. Kumari Selja’s present tour, though officially centred around organisational meetings and worker interactions across Garhwal, also includes her personal pilgrimage to Kedarnath and Badrinath shrines, reflecting the growing importance political parties are attaching to combining religious outreach with political mobilisation in Uttarakhand’s sensitive socio-political landscape.
Selja arrived in Dehradun yesterday and was welcomed at the airport by Pradesh Congress Committee president Ganesh Godiyal, Leader of the Opposition Yashpal Arya and Mahila Congress president Jyoti Rautela. From the airport, Selja chose to travel to Rishikesh instead of Dehradun, where Congress workers accorded her a warm welcome. Later, she attended the District Congress Committee meeting in Srinagar Garhwal, where party workers and office-bearers from across the region gathered in large numbers. The programme also witnessed a road show and slogan-shouting by enthusiastic workers seeking to project organisational unity ahead of the elections.
Senior Congress leaders, including Ganesh Godiyal, Yashpal Arya and former cabinet minister Harak Singh Rawat, remained present during the programmes, alongside representatives of Mahila Congress, Youth Congress, NSUI and other frontal organisations.
However, despite the recent appointment of Ganesh Godiyal as the new Pradesh Congress Committee chief, the party organisation in Uttarakhand is yet to be fully reconstituted. The delay in announcing a new PCC team and district-level organisational reshuffle continues to trigger political discussions within Congress circles, especially at a time when the party is attempting to present a united front against the BJP.
Congress insiders acknowledge that factionalism remains one of the biggest challenges before the party in Uttarakhand. The leadership change from Karan Mahara to Ganesh Godiyal was seen by many as an effort by the central leadership to strike a balance among competing groups and revive organisational cohesion. Yet, several senior leaders and aspirants are still awaiting clarity regarding their roles in the new organisational structure. In such circumstances, Selja’s meetings with workers and local leaders are also being viewed as an exercise in political stocktaking aimed at understanding internal equations before major organisational decisions are taken. Though Godiyal has only recently assumed charge as new PCC Chief, already he is holding press conferences alleging conspiracies against him within the Congress.
Following the Srinagar programme, Kumari Selja travelled to Sonprayag for an overnight stay. Tomorrow, she is scheduled to offer prayers at Kedarnath Dham before proceeding to Augustyamuni to interact with party workers and chair a meeting of the Rudraprayag District Congress Committee. On 9 May, she will attend a workers’ meeting in Birhi, Chamoli district, while on 10 May, she is scheduled to visit Badrinath Dham and later hold discussions with Congress workers at Joshimath. Her tour will conclude on 11 May with a meeting at Chamba in Tehri Garhwal before she returns to Delhi.
Congress leaders claim that the party leadership is expected to use these district-level interactions to assess booth-level preparedness, gauge worker morale and evolve a political strategy for the forthcoming elections. Discussions during the tour are likely to focus on strengthening the organisation, expanding public outreach campaigns, highlighting issues related to unemployment, migration, inflation and alleged failures of the BJP government, while also preparing the groundwork for a more coordinated election campaign in the months ahead.
The significance of Selja’s tour has further increased because Garhwal remains politically crucial for both the Congress and the BJP. With the ruling BJP already actively preparing for the next Assembly elections and Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami maintaining an aggressive political outreach across the state, the Congress too now appears keen to avoid organisational complacency and accelerate preparations much ahead of the electoral contest.
