The rebellion within the Uttarakhand Congress last year has benefited the Bharatiya Janata Party in this Assembly election, which the saffron party has won by securing 56 of the state’s 70 seats, leaving the ruling party with just 11 seats. Of the 14 Congress leaders who defected to the BJP, and later received poll tickets either for themselves or for their kin, 12 emerged winners on Saturday, when the results were declared.
In May, former chief minister Vijay Bahuguna had led nine Congress leaders and joined the BJP – two months after they had rebelled against the Harish Rawat government, leading to its fall, though it was eventually reinstated by a Supreme Court order. The other rebel leaders had followed suit. The BJP, in turn, had rewarded them by giving them party tickets, overruling the opposition of many of its own members in the state.
The turmoil within the BJP over outsiders being given tickets had spiralled into widespread protests, following which several party members had been expelled. Many BJP leaders had left the party and either joined hands with the Congress or contested the election as independent candidates.
Political analysts had considered this development a disadvantage for the BJP. They were of the view that giving tickets to the Congress turncoats might upset voters, who were in all probability looking for a change in government and the people who constituted it.
The move also went against the state BJP’s consistent stand of attacking the Congress on two counts: corruption and lack of development. In fact, during the 2013 flash floods in the state that caused widespread disaster and left over 5,500 people dead, the BJP-led government at the Centre had severely criticised Bahuguna, who was chief minister at the time, for inadequate relief work, forcing him to resign in January 2014.
Winning move
However, two years later, the BJP did not think twice before taking him into its fold – and it paid off. While Bahuguna did not contest himself, he received a ticket for his son, Saurabh Bahuguna, to stand from Sitarganj Assembly constituency, a seat the senior Bahuguna had won in 2012. Saurabh Bahuguna went on to win 50,597 votes, defeating the Congress’ Malti Biswas.
Another senior leader, Yashpal Arya, once considered the Dalit face of the Congress in Uttarakhand, was given a ticket within two days of his joining the BJP. His son, Sanjeev Arya, was also made the BJP candidate from Nainital. Yashpal Arya contested from Bajpur, which he had won in 2012, and was victorious on Saturday as well, polling 54,965 of the votes. His son also won with 30,036 votes.
Another former Congressman, Satpal Maharaj, contested and won on a BJP ticket from Chaubattakhal, polling 20,921 votes. The spiritual leader and former Congress MP was the only one among the 14 rebels to have joined the BJP at around the time of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the others defecting between May last year and January this year.
Harak Singh Rawat, the other senior Congress leader who joined the BJP along with Bahuguna, was in the fray from Kotdwar constituency, where he was locked in a battle with Congress candidate Surendra Singh Negi. Harak Singh Rawat won with 39,859 votes to Negi’s 28,541 votes.
The other constituencies that carried the rebel contestants to victory are Someshwar, Narendranagar, Khanpur, Roorkee, Raipur, Rudraprayag and Yamunotri.
The only two seats where the Congress-rebels-turned-BJP-candidates lost are Jaspur and Kedarnath. In the former, Shailendra Mohan Singhal went down to the Congress’ Adesh Singh Chauhan. And in Kedarnath, Shaila Rani Rawat – who was the Congress legislator from that constituency – lost to Manoj Rawat. Shaila Rani Rawat’s departure last year had put Chief Minister Harish Rawat in a fix, and he had fielded the relatively less experienced Manoj Rawat from this seat.
Also, contrary to its success in the rest of the state, the BJP came in fourth in Kedarnath – an area that bore the brunt of the flood disaster in 2013 and where development works is still underway – trailing two independent candidates.