By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 15 Apr: In the ongoing Lok Sabha Polls, Uttarakhand will have polling in the first phase, on 19 April. Also, 17 April is the last day of campaigning for the first phase. So far, Priyanka Gandhi remains the only national Congrerss leader to have addressed two rallies in Uttarakhand (in Ramnagar and Roorkee). The campaign of the Congress has been such that even the star campaigners from the state itself have not been able to campaign across Uttarakhand. Even the tallest Congress leader and former CM Harish Rawat has remained confined to the Haridwar constituency from where his son Virender Rawat is the party candidate. Other ‘star campaigners’ Yashpal Arya and Pritam Singh also have remained largely confined to one or two constituencies. In fact, one of the star campaigners in the list of 40 released by Congress, Dinesh Aggarwal, joined the BJP just the next day after the release of this list. Besides this, there was a long list of star campaigners of the national level but none of them has come to the state to campaign.
Till Saturday, senior Congress leaders in Uttarakhand were claiming that senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Congress President Mallikarjun were among the national leaders who would address rallies in support of candidates from the state in the ongoing Parliamentary Elections. However, speaking to Garhwal Post, they now admit that with just two days of campaigning remaining in Uttarakhand, there is little likelihood of either of these two or other national party leaders addressing rallies or holding road shows here.
Party Vice President, Organisation, Mathura Dutt Joshi admitted that no programme of any other national leader has been received for Uttarakhand by the party and with just two days of campaigning left after today, the possibility of any rallies of top Congress leadership is very remote. Joshi, however, added that while, on the one hand, the BJP candidates are solely dependent on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to win elections as its sitting MPs have done no noteworthy work in their respective constituencies, on the other, Congress candidates are strong enough to campaign and influence voters. He also added that BJP is pitching emotional issues in the current campaign and divisive ones, but the Congress candidates are raising real issues such as corruption, paper leak scams, unemployment and inflation as well as the Ankita Bhandari case. Joshi claimed that Priyanka Gandhi who has been the only national leader to address rallies here has alone managed to overshadow the BJP’s long list of star campaigners. He said that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra raised all the relevant issues related to Uttarakhand in her public meetings at Ramnagar and Roorkee. These issues are the Ankita murder case, Silkyara Tunnel disaster, Joshimath disaster, problems of sugarcane farmers, unemployment, inflation, but BJP’s star campaigners and its big leaders have remained silent on these issues. The rallies of Vadra have resonated well with the people of the state. He claimed that, at the same time, on this new election stunt of BJP, Congress Vice President Mathura Dutt Joshi said that after this election, PM Modi and BJP will do only Ram-Ram. BJP has no real issues and that not a single guarantee of Modi has been fulfilled in the last 10 years. He also claimed that BJP leaders are not even consistent over their stand on various issues and try to confuse the people. But now the people of the country have been able to see through the façade and they know that there is no substance in Modi’s words.
On the other hand, BJP spokesperson Suresh Joshi while speaking to Garhwal Post, reminded that BJP has organised a large number of public meetings of star campaigners in all five Lok Sabha seats of the state. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Minister VK Singh, and BJP President JP Nadda and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and several Union ministers and national BJP leaders have addressed public meetings. Home Minister Amit Shah is also scheduled to address a rally and hold a roadshow in Kotdwar tomorrow. In these public meetings, emphasis has been laid on faith, development and the need to conserve the heritage. After the recent public meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP leaders are going to the temples and paying obeisance. They are also going from door to door saying Ram-Ram to the people on behalf of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Joshi said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given a big message about the Sanatan culture. He said that Congress has already realised that it is set to lose all the five Lok Sabha constituencies in the state and therefore its top leaders Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Khadge could not even muster courage to campaign in the state.
