By ARUN PRATAP SINGH
DEHRADUN, 14 Mar: BJP has now announced candidates on all the 5 Parliamentary Constituencies of Uttarakhand, changing its candidates on two seats while repeating the sitting MPs in the remaining three. In contrast, the Congress has so far announced candidates on 3 seats.
The BJP appears to have taken a major lead in the campaigning for the parliamentary elections in the state as 3 of sitting MPs, namely Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah, Ajay Bhatt and Ajay Tamta are already in their respective constituencies seeking votes for themselves and the party. In the two remaining constituencies, too, the sitting MPs namely Tirath Singh Rawat (Pauri Garhwal) and Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank (Haridwar) were active and seeking votes for the party in anticipation of being repeated as candidates. Now that they have been replaced, the new candidates, namely Trivendra Singh Rawat (Haridwar) and Anil Baluni (Garhwal Pauri) have already become active in their constituencies as probably they had been sounded out about possible tickets to them.
At the same time, Congress candidates announced on Pauri, Tehri and Almora-Pithoragarh, namely Ganesh Godiyal, Jot Singh Gunsola and Pradeep Tamta are in the process of preparing for the polls. Pradeep Tamta was expecting the ticket and he is a bit ahead of his other party colleagues as far as campaigning goes.
BJP is seeking votes and support from the people of Uttarakhand on the basis of work of “Double Engine” Government and in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Congress, on the other hand, is yet to work out its alliances with possible partners and, in that alliance, the name of Prime Ministerial candidate is also not clear. Congress candidates are likely to seek votes on the issues such as ‘rising unemployment’, continued migration from the hills, Ankita Bhandari murder case and inflation and ‘poor law and order situation’.
Apart from the infrastructure projects that are underway with the help of the Union Government, the BJP in Uttarakhand will also seek public support over issues such as Uniform Civil Code that has been made a law recently in the state, and success of central welfare schemes through better implementation and on the promises of providing greater employment and self employment opportunities through better investment in the industrial sector through investors summits. Besides, the BJP also has emotional issues in its hand, the construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya being the major one among them besides the recent implementation of Citizens Amendment Act (CAA) which give a strong push to the Hindutva ideology of the BJP.
By arresting a large number of those involved in recruitment scams and by bringing a very strict anti-copying law, the BJP has managed to tide over what could have become a major political crisis for the party in the wake of many of the competitive examinations having been rigged by the mafia. But relentless action in this regard by the BJP Government has prevented a big dent on the party’s image. Now it is even trying to capitalise on this issue on the basis of its action against the copying mafia.
It may be recalled that UCC had been promised by Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami before the 2022 assembly elections and now that the law has been enacted in this regard, the government is claiming that it means business as far as fulfilling its promises is concerned.
BJP claims that it has several major achievements to its credit which will ensure repeat of last time’s performance of a clean sweep for the third straight time in Uttarakhand.
Besides this, BJP has a welloiled party organisation right up to the booth level as compared to the Congress which has been losing leaders as well as party workers by way of resignations from the party. So much so that Congress is hoping to make a strong contest mainly on the Haridwar seat. With a shrewd leader like Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank being no more in the fray, the party is hoping to make a dent here. However, sources claimed that BSP might field a strong candidate from Haridwar and make the fight triangular and in case SP also fields a candidate, the contest in Haridwar will become four cornered one which may well prove to be advantageous to the BJP.
