While the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP) with its regimented approach has already blown the bugle for the Lok Sabha election a couple of months away , the schism-stricken Congress in Uttarakhand appears to be still in a state of disarray.
The tone of the election campaign of BJP in the state has been set by none other than the its president Amit Shah when, during the conclave of the booth level workers from Tehri and Haridwar Lok Sabha seats constituencies, he exhorted the party workers to ensure that the party repeats its 2014 sweep in this election too.
Notably, BJP had made a clean sweep with its candidates winning from all the five seats up for grab in Uttarakhand. To give a further boost to the party’s campaign, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to address a rally at Rudrapur in Udham Singh Nagar district on February 14.
The State BJP unit is going all-out to make the rally a huge success in terms of turnout. If such back to back presence of the mighty duo is not enough, the chief of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ( RSS) — the ideological fount of the saffron party — Mohan Bhagwat has been camping in Dehradun for the past couple of days seemingly to galvanise the cadres into throwing full weight behind the BJP candidates.
To take on the formidable saffron onslaught backed by its well-oiled election machinery, the Congress leaders are falling back on the party president Rahul Gandhi and the newly appointed AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi to win over the electorate of the State.
It is learnt that the state Congress unit is going the whole hog to bring the scions of the Gandhi family in the State. A Congress insider said that things are being finalised regarding the public meeting to be addressed by the party chief Rahul Gandhi.
He further disclosed that the in-charge of state Congress Anugrah Narayan Singh would meet the Congress president during the meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) on Thursday.
Besides, the state Congress president Pritam Singh is expected to request Gandhi to visit the state while
he meets him during the meeting of the PCC chiefs slated on February 9.
The Congress has tried to get out of the swamp of inaction through the Parivartan Yatra undertaken by the PCC president Pritam Singh. However, the Yatra failed to bring the verve in the party what with the inclement weather in first phase and what with the absence of the charismatic former CM Harish Rawat and his followers in the second phase.
The political observers say that while BJP is working like a well- oiled election machinery, plunging headlong into the canvassing mode with a regimented approach, Congress leaders, divided in different camps, are, on the other hand, looking devoid of the vigour, the cutting edge, required for the dash into the heat and dust of the electioneering while presenting a semblance of a united face.
“The BJP has constituted a team of dedicated workers at the booth level. It has even finalised Pana ( page) Pramukhs who would be the in-charges of one page of the voters’ list. The Congress, on the other hand, has failed to constitute even its Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC), the highest body in the state,’’ said an observer.
Congress leaders, however, are quick to rubbish charges of inactivity. The state Congress spokesperson RP Raturi said that the whole organisation of the Congress is in an active, election mode.
“The party has constituted different committees for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and soon the big leaders of the party would plunge into the full-fledged electioneering to strike the right chord with the people,” he added.