While both Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and fledgling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have consistently claimed to provide a viable and strong third alternative to the electorate of Uttarakhand, the political situation on ground appears polarized between Congress and BJP.
It appears that the Central leaderships of both BSP and AAP have understood the situation and did not focus much on the State. BSP supremo Mayawati addressed only two meetings in Uttarakhand, while top AAP leaders, including Arvind Kejriwal, abstained from campaigning in the State.
The campaigning for the general elections ended on Monday and both BJP and Congress put all their resources at disposal to woo the electorate of the State in all the five lok Sabha constituencies. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, vice president Rahul Gandhi, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, Raj Babbar, Rajiv Shukla campaigned extensively for Congress candidates in the state. The BJP threw its star campaigners like Narendra Modi, president Rajnath Singh, Party Patriarch lK Advani, Nitin Gadkari, Uma Bharti, and Ravi Shankar Prasad at hustings in the poll battle of Uttarakhand. To give a touch of glamour, Hema Malini from BJP and Ameesha Patel took out hugely successful road shows in State.
The local AAP and BSP leaders consistently boasted that they are getting very good response from the electorate of Uttarakhand, but the fact that top leaders of these parties paid little or no attention to the State shows that their central
leaderships sees very little chance in the State. BSP, the third largest party in the State in terms of vote share, played the Muslim card in the State and gave tickets to candidates of Muslim community in Haridwar and Nainital lok Sabha constituencies. The revolt of Social Welfare Minister Surendra Rakesh and leader of BSP legislators Haridas rocked BSP's plans of a good show in the State. BSP supremo Mayawati did addressed two rallies at Roorkee and Rudrapur on Friday, but they were not enough to generate significant political mileage for the party.
The nascent AAP was also not supported by its Central leaders in the State. Top AAP leaders, including Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and others, refrained from coming to the State and only Prashant Bhushan made a short trip to Dehradun. One of the local AAP leaders confessed that their morale would have been boosted by the visit of Central leaders.