The decisiveness of the voters as they had shown it many times in the past, may again upset poll calculations of ‘overenthusiastic’ political leaders who try to reach out to their electorate with emotional appeal, while debunking the real issues on the ground in this Nainital-Udhamsinghnagar parliamentary constituency or for that matter elsewhere in the State.
Surprisingly, even Chief Minister Harish Rawat during his whirlwind tour of this constituency did not lay down his vision on smoothening the basic services like drinking water crisis of Haldwani and other parts of the region.
It’s to be noted that the Haldwani city is still dependent on a four-decade-old drinking water distribution system designed to cater to only about 50, 000 population then. Now the population of Haldwani has gone over five lakh, but the city still depends on the same old drinking water distribution network. Therefore, drinking water crisis running for many days and even months at a stretch in one part of the city or the other is a routine affair for citizens of Halwani.
However, when his attention was drawn to the same basic service issue, Chief Minister Rawat during his visit here tried to solve the issue by giving some assurances. Even the long pending Jamrani dam project that was proposed during UP regime to meet the drinking and irrigation needs of Haldwani and adjacent areas of UP and to integrate the same project with tourism could not see light of the day even during the tenure of Chief Minister Rawat as the Union Water Resources Minister.
When his attention was drawn to the Jamrani dam issue, Rawat tried to sum up the matter by saying that to construct Jamrani dam has also been his dream. Presently, the officials concerned of the Uttarakhand and UP Governments are looking into it, he added.
Similarly, State Finance Minister and MlA from Haldwani Assembly constituency Indira Hardiyesh also seems to have maintained a stoic silence over perennial drinking water crisis that has become synonyms with the Haldwani city, except reassuring her electorate time and again to improve the said drinking water crisis.
Haldwani is one of the important Assembly constituencies of the Nainital- Udhamsinghnagar lok Sabha seat.Apart from local MlA Indira Hardiyesh, most of the powers that be including Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal, Cabinet Minister Yashpal Arya, BJP’s senior leader Bachi Singh Rawat and MlA from Kaladhungi Banshidhar Bhagat to name a few reside in this same Haldwani assembly segment.
But interestingly, no one has ever been seen showing any serious effort to improve the basic services like drinking services of this growing urban city of Uttarakhand. Political leaders may attract the beleaguered citizens during elections. But they always do not succeed in doing so. As has been evident from the past experiences, people of this city had booted out State Cabinet Minister and MlA from Haldwani Indira Hardiyesh in 2007 Assembly polls reposing faith in BJP’s Banshidhar Bhagat. But interestingly, perhaps realising the mood of the voters of this Haldwani Assembly constituency against him, BJP’s Banshidhar Bhagat moved to neighbouring Kaladhungi Assembly constituency to contest 2012 assembly polls.
More so, the people of the Haldwani assembly segment had already shown their anger and disappointment against MlA Indira Hardiyesh in last year’s Mayoral elections when her handpicked candidate was defeated by BJP candidate and present Mayor of Haldlwani Joginder Rautela.
So given the past electoral trends, the urban voters may also prove to be crucial in the said lok Sabha seat. However, apart from drinking water crisis and poor irrigation network in hilly region, flood is one of the major concerns for people of Terai region of this lok Sabha seat. It is to be seen whether candidates take these burning issues as part of their priority list or put them on the margin of their priority ahead.