Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday set the BJP a target of winning more than 65 of Uttarakhand's 70 assembly seats next year, calling for a “hat-trick” in the state and asking party workers to carry the message door to door. Addressing a rally in Dehradun to mark the state's 26th Foundation Day, he said Uttarakhand would be the first milestone in the country's journey towards a developed India.
Shah, who also inaugurated and laid foundation stones for 62 development projects worth Rs 1,475.31 crore, recalled that the party had won 57 seats in 2017 and 47 in 2022, and said workers must now cross the 65-seat mark. The “voice of Uttarakhand” should reach Rahul Gandhi, he said, adding that the Congress leader's tours of the state would not help because thousands of BJP workers were already working on local problems.
He dismissed Rahul Gandhi's “vote bachao” campaign as a “ghuspathiya bachao” rally and demanded the removal of “infiltrators” from the electoral rolls and from the country.
Invoking the Uniform Civil Code, Shah said Uttarakhand was the first state to implement it and that 15 other states were moving towards it. “No one can have four marriages in Uttarakhand. No woman can be insulted through 'triple talaq' in Uttarakhand,” he said. He also said the BJP was freeing government land from encroachment by removing illegal shrines and madrasas, while the Congress, he alleged, advocates a Muslim university when in power.
On the economy, Shah claimed tourism in the state had grown 380 per cent and said the government was shifting Uttarakhand from a “money-order economy” to an industrial one. He cited the 2016 surgical strikes, the 2019 airstrikes and 2025 Operation Sindoor to argue that border security had been strengthened, and pointed to projects worth Rs 270 crore in 51 border villages under the Vibrant Village programme. “We have also worked to ensure that migration stops,” he said.
Chief Minister Dhami, who spoke before Shah, said “some individuals” question EVMs and the electoral process after losing elections, and accused the Congress of running misleading narratives. He asked why Congress leaders had not spoken against their ally and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, who allegedly described the people of Uttarakhand as “infiltrators”. Dhami also questioned the Congress over what he called an insult to NSA Ajit Doval, who is from the state, referring to Rahul Gandhi's remarks before an INDIA bloc rally that PM Modi, Shah, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, CEC Gyanesh Kumar and Doval were “villains of this story”.
Dhami claimed his government had sent more than 100 members of an “exam-cheating mafia” to jail and provided government jobs to over 35,000 youths, with examinations held without any instance of cheating or corruption.
(With inputs from media reports)