The complexities of India as a democracy come to the fore during elections. Indian politics has layers of region, caste, religion, at play. Add to that political aspirations of party workers and the issues of the electorate.
All this is currently visible in the hill state of Uttarakhand that goes to polls in the first phase of the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections on April 19. Although it is among the smaller states of the Indian union, Uttarakhand and its politicians have been hogging the limelight for all the wrong reasons for quite some time.
Though it is seen as one of the ‘dream states’, and turf of the right-wing majoritarian forces, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates are facing a daunting task in the state this time.
In the 2014 and 2019 elections, the saffron party had made a clean sweep of the Lok Sabha polls in all the five parliamentary constituencies. In the 2009 elections it was the Congress that had stunned the poll observers by winning all the seats.
But a lot of water has flowed under the bridge in the last ten years. In Polls 2024, all the seats have a straight fight between the Congress and BJP.
Others such as the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) have put up candidates on three seats. However, this lone regional force stands pushed to the margins of the state polity for quite some time now.
The same is the case with Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) that suddenly announced candidates on all five seats. However, the BSP has ceased to have much of a support base in the state. It once had some support in the plains.
Observers say that the BSP’s support base has been eroded in its erstwhile ‘fortress’ of Uttar Pradesh, and it can hardly expect support from the voters in Uttarakhand. The BSP’s entry is being seen as an attempt to have some impact on the poll dynamics.
Coming back to the main contenders, Tehri Garhwal seat is witnessing a battle between BJP candidate Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah who hails from Tehri royal family, and Congress’ candidate Jot Singh Gunsola. Then there is Bobby Panwar, a rookie independent candidate, who is giving jitters to both his rivals as large crowds turn up in his support.
The Haridwar constituency is witnessing a battle between former BJP Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, and Virendra Rawat who is the son of former Congress Chief Minister Harish Rawat.
In the Pauri seat there is a high voltage battle going on between Anil Baluni of the BJP and Ganesh Godiyal of the Congress. In the Kumaon region the battle for the Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar seat is between Union Minister Ajay Bhatt of the BJP and Prakash Joshi of the Congress.
In the lone reserved seat of Almora the fight is once again between rivals Ajay Tamta of the BJP and Pradeep Tamta of the Congress.
What has come as a surprise is that the battle on the five seats which were seen as a cake walk for the BJP is now turning out to be something different. It is not the Congress that has emerged as a challenger to the BJP, but the common people who are questioning the local leadership of the saffron party.
Many are openly saying that they are not keen to vote for the local BJP leaders. However, even though the people are questioning the local BJP leaders they are demonstrating a continued admiration for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
At the same time the same people are feeling “let down” by the Congress leadership. Questions are being raised if the Congress has surrendered on some of the seats in the face of continuing departure of several leaders.
Those who left the party included the sitting MLA from Badrinath Rajendra Bhandari, and former minister Dinesh Aggarwal who was once a close confidant of Harish Rawat. Both of them have joined the BJP.
The question being discussed by the people on the streets is what stopped the Congress high command from fielding heavyweights like Harish Rawat, Pritam Singh and Yashpal Arya on Haridwar, Tehri-Garhwal and Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar seats. Why did they opt out of the race and why was their decision accepted?
Harish Rawat had won the Haridwar parliamentary seat in 2009 after descending from his traditional seat of Almora. He had stunned everyone with a poll campaign that was never seen before.
Yashpal Arya being a Dalit face and a former state unit chief could have been a strong face from both Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar or even the reserve seat of Almora.
Similarly, Pritam Singh is a strong leader from the Jaunsar Bhabar belt and is also a former state unit chief. There have been stories in the local press that Pritam Singh had asked his supporters to not even suggest his name as a contender to the party observers who were out to zero in on the candidate on the different seats.
Congress workers say that the party should have chosen its candidates well in advance. They added that the poll campaign should have been kicked off early, as the BJP’s tactics to win the five seats and also send out ‘polarising messages’ from this turf have been underway for quite some time.
But despite all these and various other shortfalls the candidates are in the field with active support coming from the Left parties as an arrangement under the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (I.N.D.I.A).
Despite not having secured any electoral victories in the state, the Left parties and their cadres have been on the forefront in raising people-centric issues. They have also carried out protests to give voice to the people’s concerns. At the same time there is a concern among some of the Left inclined observers over the main Left parties not contesting on any of the five seats for the first time after 1952.
There is no death of people-centric issues in the state. The people are seeking answers from the ruling BJP dispensation and the party leadership trying to divert their attention raising emotive issues that are polarising as well.
Employment remains the most important election issue. In Uttarakhand it assumes special significance when it gets dovetailed with the Agniveer scheme for the defence forces.
The hill states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh send a large number of youth to the defence forces. As a co-traveler on a local bus in Dehradun told this reporter, “Our youth have always aspired to be a part of the defence services but the Agniveer scheme has taken away the charm of the vocation.”
Observers say that the Agniveer issue is echoing across the hills. “For a person living in the hills the circle of life is around a job in the defence forces with a secure income and pension. All he aspires to is to build a house in cities like Dehradun or Haldwani that offer reasonably adequate health and education facilities once he reaches the middle or old age. This dream stands shattered under the Agniveer regime,” a Dehradun based observer said.
The soldiers’ dependents who live in the villages here have survived on ‘money order economy’. This refers to the money sent by post by the youths who either join the defence and para military forces, or are compelled to migrate to take up jobs in other cities.
Of late the emigration from the villages has become a big problem with reports of villages becoming empty regularly coming from various areas.
The people hold the politicians of the state responsible for the state of affairs. They feel cheated by both the political and the administrative class and often rue that the whole aspiration of having a small state to address the concerns of the people living in the difficult mountainous terrain stands lost.
“There is no choice before us. We have to move out of our villages to look for employment to sustain the elders back home. Had the politicians, no matter what party they belong to, ever thought of developing proper employment avenues in the hills, the condition of the people would have been quite different.
“You go and visit the villages of the top leaders and you won’t find proper infrastructure even there also. Why? Because all they have done is to make money and build their bungalows in cities like Dehradun and Delhi leaving their brethren to their fate in the hills.
“Besides purely economical reasons, there is a cultural impact on our lives as well as our children growing up away from their ancestral homes have a total disconnect with their villages,” Jeevan Singh from Yamkeshwar who has been working in neighbouring Himachal Pradesh with a furniture unit for the last two decades, said.
Then there are the issues pertaining to the environment. The Joshimath land subsidence has been the biggest example of the development model gone haywire.
Uttarakhand has also seen the Right Wing promoting communal politics to satiate its craving for majoritarianism. It is also done to divert the people’s attention from the real issues.
In the last one year alone, Uttarakhand has had four major episodes of targeting Muslims in Purola in Uttarkashi, flare-up in Haldwani after the reported demolition of a Madarsa in Banbhoolpura area.
There was a previous attempt at mass eviction from land belonging to the Indian Railways in Haldwani where the Supreme Court had stepped in to provide respite to the residents. More recently, the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) was passed by the BJP government in the state under CM Pushkar Singh Dhami.
Another issue being raised is the case of Ankita Bhandari. The 19-year-old girl employed at a tourist resort in Yamkeshwar was allegedly murdered by Pulkit Arya and his two friends in September 2022.
Pulkit is the son of BJP leader Vinod Arya who enjoyed a ministerial rank in the state government under Trivendra Singh Rawat. His brother Ankit Arya had also enjoyed a ministerial rank in the present government.
The father and son had been expelled from the party after a public outrage. The victim had reportedly refused to provide 'special services' to the clients at the behest of the hotel owner Pulkit.
Later she was allegedly beaten up and thrown into the Chilla Canal. Her parents have been leading a movement seeking justice.
Sources disclosed that recently union minister Smriti Irani had no response to the questions on Ankita Bhandari case put to her by the local media when she had accompanied BJP candidate Baluni to file his nomination on the Pauri seat.
The issues being talked about across India like inflation, corruption, lack of health facilities in the villages etc, are also of significance in this hill state.
For the BJP it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is the main ‘vote seeker and catcher’. At a rally in Rishikesh on Thursday Modi tried to whip up martial passions. He said that in the last ten years there has been a government that has made the country strong and that is why ‘terrorists are being killed inside their dens’.
Modi claimed that during the Congress regime the defence personnel were even facing a shortage of bullet proof jackets. He also talked about the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, bringing about a law against triple talaq, giving reservation to women in the parliament and state assemblies and addressing the one rank one pension issue of the ex-servicemen.
On the local issues Modi talked about the progress of the Rishikesh-Karnprayag railway track, the increasing number of visitors to the Char Dham religious circuit, more than 1000 youngsters registering their start-ups in the state and nine out of ten houses in the state getting tap water.
Just a day before his visit it was senior Congress leader Surya Kant Dhasmana posing some important questions to the BJP as well as Modi. “Why has the address of the VVIP who was behind the Ankita Bhandari murder not been disclosed till date?
“The Prime Minister talks about the respect of the army, but the central government first weakens the army by bringing destructive schemes like Agneepath and then cheats the youth who aspire to join the army and serve the country. This has had the biggest impact in Uttarakhand.
“On the other hand, BJP workers beat up and pushed the ex-servicemen who had gone to present their views on this issue at General (Retired) VK Singh' s program. What does the Prime Minister have to say on this?” Dhasmana asked.
He added, “The people should know who are the BJP leaders protecting the two main accused in the biggest recruitment scam in the state.”
Dhasmana also asked why there was no action against the company whose failure to build an escape tunnel had led to the recent trapping of 41 workers in a tunnel in Silkyara who were later rescued by a team of rat miners.
The situation on the ground is interesting at this point. “The Congress heavyweights have let the people of the state down by not contesting. It is not that there is no challenge to the BJP candidates.
“Baluni who is said to be the blue-eyed boy of the BJP’s central top brass is facing a stiff challenge from Godiyal. How would you explain Godiyal seeking crowdfunding to contest, and women from remote villages contributing small amounts starting from Rs 10 and Rs 50 asking him to contest with all his might?
“Godiyal has made a significant contribution to the area by setting up a college and otherwise also standing with the people in the time of their need. He is addressing the crowds in Garhwali, the local language in which Baluni is not that proficient.
“In Haridwar also Harish Rawat should have contested, given the fact that a large presence of minorities coupled with Dalits gave him a fair chance,” veteran observer S.M.A. Kazmi said.
An interesting battle is on in the Tehri Garhwal seat as well, of which Dehradun is a part. It is the presence of an independent supported by UKD Bobby Panwar that has upset the poll calculations of both the BJP and the Congress.
Panwar had come to limelight during the agitation that had followed the recruitment scam. It is the youth that is driving his campaign.
“Our fight is against unemployment and corruption. It is to save the pride and existence of Uttarakhand,” Panwar said, as he campaigned via a bike rally from Dehradun to Sahaspur on Thursday.
Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah had won the seat on the last two occasions but people often point towards her being inaccessible. They say that the Modi factor was the reason they voted for her on the last two occasions. The question is will the same factor work this time too?
Her Congress opponent Gunsola is also putting up a good fight raising questions on the achievement of the central government in the last decade.
“The change that we are seeing on the ground is that the people who were not ready to even listen to us in 2019 now hear us with rapt attention even as at some places the right-wing cadres are hostile,” Nidhi Negi the general secretary of the women’s wing of the Congress, said.
“The BJP has always tried to rake up emotive issues to dilute the real issues. Countering their narratives that come with a backing from their social media campaigners and aggression is a challenging task. We have a scenario where the accused in the paper leak scam is openly campaigning for their candidate. But at the same time people, particularly women, are looking beyond their set narratives,” Asha Dobriyal Sharma, the vice president of the wing added.
The BJP has its committed set of voters who, even when criticising the local candidates and leaders, pose immense faith in Modi’s leadership. A large number of them are beneficiaries of the government schemes.
“I do not care who the BJP candidate is or what has been her performance. For me Modi is important as today I have got a finished house under the affordable housing scheme. It is something I would never have afforded at the market rates. Who would give me a house for just Rs 6 lakh,” a beneficiary who works as a domestic help in the post Rajpur area of Dehradun, said.
The BJP supporters are pretty confident that the party will win in Uttarakhand purely on the basis of its well-oiled organisational structure and the backing of its ideological fountainhead the RSS.
Despite all the hype built around it, the UCC is a non-issue on the ground. “This is purely because of its confusions and complexities because of which nobody understands it.
“The Dhami government has accepted all those living in the state for one year as the residents of the state while the people have been demanding that only those be treated as real residents of the state whose antecedents date back to before 1950.
“The people have been seeking to preserve the cultural identity of the state and have also been demanding stringent land laws to prevent outsiders from plundering its land resources,” veteran observer Jay Singh Rawat, said.