Uttarakhand State BJP leaders are a worried lot with the party’s national president Amit Shah visiting the State on Sunday to make them account for the string of electoral losses the saffron party has suffered in the recent past.
The BJP high command is supposed to have taken things seriously as the party has been licking its wounds with humiliating by-poll defeats eerily haunting it.
Things are all the more galling for the ruling party in the Centre as the crushing by-poll defeats when juxtaposed against the startling 2013 lok Sabha sweep looks doubly disappointing. Shah is supposed to address a meeting of the party leaders and workers — MPs, MlAs, district BJP presidents, general secretaries, district Panchayat presidents and vice-presidents and others - at Survey of India auditorium in Dehradun that day.
Things are really ominous for the party which presided over the creation of the State in 2000 and ruled the State for several terms. It was crushed in several Assembly segments many of which were deemed as BJP redoubts. Doiwala and Someshwar can be cited as instances. By-elections to these two constituencies were necessitated after BJP MlAs Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Ajay Tamta had quit after being elected to the lok Sabha from Haridwar and Almora parliamentary constituencies, respectively.
In both these seats as in other seats that went to the by-polls in July last, the BJP was battered with the Congress inflicting a crushing blow by a clean sweep. With this, the ruling Congress which had formed the Government with support from only 32 MlAs had its legislative strength risen up to 36 in 70-member Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha.
It may seem the BJP does not set much electoral store by Uttarakhand as it sends only eight MPs - five to the lok Sabha and three to the Rajya Sabha. This might explain why the party did not care to induct any of the five lS MPs from the State in the Union Cabinet. But the observers feel that Uttarakhand, defied as the spiritual backbone of the Indian nation-Devbhoomi - with Ganga and four celebrated pilgrim points, including Kedarnath, dotting the geographical landscape of the state, can hardly be debunked by a party that espouses the plank of cultural nationalism.
Things are more so as several of the dream projects Narendra Modi regime has embarked on to unify the nation in the golden bond of the country’s timeless spiritual culture like Ganga Swachhta Bharat Abhiyan relate directly to Uttarakhand.
They can hardly ignore the fact that Ganga originates from Uttarakhand and Haridwar and Rishikesh, two religiously vibrant centres embodying the hoary Indian heritage are also located here.
However, the State BJP leaders, wilting under pressure in the wake of consecutive debacles, are inclined to explain away things, saying that by-polls have a different arithmetic and it is not wise to muddle these with the overall popularity rating of the party in the State.
Amit Shah’s Dehradun visit - Would the heads of State BJP leaders rollIJ
An observer said such attempt to whittle down things would not go down well with the saffron think-tank.
The observer said BJP had swept the 2013 lS election, riding piggyback of the Modi torrents. “The state BJP stalwarts that include three ex CMs had nothing to do with the spectacular feat. They have failed to galvanise the party rank and file and the people at large, shorn as they are of the charisma-something the Congress CM Harish Rawat has in good measure. It would be better for them if they come down to bite the dust and help the party to resurrect from the rubble of the past instead of basking in reflected glory,” the observer opined.
The people rejected BJP candidates in the Assembly by-polls that fall under the lS constituencies the party seniors represent. The refrain goes that Gen Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri, Bhagat Singh Koshiyari and Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank-all ex-CMs- are cutting sorry figures as they care a little to adequately nurse their constituencies. The party lost six Assembly by-polls across Garwal and Kumaon regions by convincing margins, giving the lie to the boast that the trio could conjure up victories on the strength of their own magic equations with the electorate of the state. Despite the towering presence of Bhagat, the party lost polls from Sitarganj, Dharchula and Someshwar. Similarly, despite Nishank staying put during the entire campaigning period, BJP lost from Doiwala and Bhagwanpur which come under the Haridwar Parliamentary constituency Nishank represents.
Amit Shah’s upcoming visit is pregnant with myriad possibilities with Congress straddling along the political landscape of the state, rebuffing the principal Opposition party to insignificance. “Heads might roll as Shah is a no-nonsense hardcore politician who can see through shenanigans,” an observer said. He further said that astute Harish Rawat is queering the pitch of a possible comeback bid by BJP while preparing his party for the upcoming 2017 Assembly election silently, away from the public glitz. Uttarakhand being electorally dominated by Thakur and Brahmins, the redoubtable Thakur leader from the Congress is now engaged in fissuring further the electoral clout of his rivals, outsmarting them in the game of political sweepstakes.