Despite his ‘unceremonious’ exit in less than two years as Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, Vijay Bahuguna, as a loyal party man, may not work in a manner that could go against party’s interests in the ensuing lok Sabha elections in the State. But the same cannot be said about his electorate of Udham Singh Nagar’s Sitarganj Assembly constituency and more importantly, his flip-flop over contesting from Tehri lok Sabha constituency is only weakening ruling party’s poll equations in that lok Sabha seat.
The Bengali community dominated Sitarganj voters gave a landslide mandate to present MlA Bahuguna in 2012 Assembly by-elections from that seat, strengthening his position as Chief Minister of the hill State.Resolving some of the contentious issues including land ownership rights pending for decades by MlA Bahuguna during his tenure as Chief Minister of Uttarakhand as his supporters in Sitarganj maintain, has only brought the voters of this assembly constituency closer to him.
But former Bahuguna’s exit from the CM’s office had not gone down well among the voters of the Sitarganj Assembly constituency and it came as a disappointing experience for the people of the Sitarganj Assembly constituency which Bahuguna still represents as an MlA.It’s to be remembered that end of former Bahuguna’s less than two years tenure as CM of Uttarakhand was not a happy occasion for him also. He was shown the door to bring in incumbent Rawat without any ‘charge’. Bahuguna had himself said on many occasions that there was no charge against him. Yet he was asked to quit,’ adding but he would continue to work for the party.
Though Bahuguna has reassured his voters to continue to work for them as usual, the Congress party’s change of guard exercise just ahead of the general elections 2014 process has not come as convincing for the Sitarganj people.It was a VIP seat when Vijay Bahuguna was heading the State Government. With his exit as Chief Minister, the VIP status has also been withdrawn from Sitarganj, Parvesh Kumar, a resident of Sitarganj, said.
The most important thing is that a lot of developmental works have been carried out ever since Bahuguna was elected from here. But his removal as CM was really disappointing, added Kumar. It is interesting to know that the voters of the Sitarganj Assembly constituency constituted a sizeable chunk of the total voters of the Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar voters. There are over 87,000 voters alone in Sitarganj assembly segment out of over 15 lakh voters in the aforesaid Nainital Udham Singh Nagar parliamentary constituency.
If the popular mandate of 2009 general elections from this lok Sabha seat when the Congress candidate KC Singh Baba’s victory margin was recorded only about 88,000 votes, is any indication, these over 87,000 voters may provide to be decisive in the upcoming lok Sabha polls here.
So, many a Congress insiders here maintain that Vijay Bahuguna who is weakening Congress’ wining prospects in the Tehari Garhwal parliamentary constituency by giving a hard time to his successor Harish Rawat and the Congress Party in zeroing in on a consensus party candidate from that seat, may also damage the ruling party’s poll equations in Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar lok Sabha in the ensuing general elections.