The votes of serving armed forces personnel are significant to decide the fate of candidates considering the narrow victory margin especially in mountainous constituencies. The armed forces personnel cast their franchise by the medium of postal ballots.
The Election Commission has sent 97567 postal ballots for the armed forces personnel of the State. Apart from them the employees of State Government engaged in election duty sought about 76000 postal ballots to exercise their democratic right. The returning officers have started receiving these postal ballots.
The postal ballots have played vital role in deciding winners and have thrown surprises in past elections. In the Assembly election of year 2007, Subodh Uniyal of Congress got better of his Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) rival Om Gopal Rawat in the counting of general votes but tables were turned when postal ballots were counted. Uniyal got 13721 votes, nine more than 13712 secured by Rawat but in postal ballots Uniyal received four votes as compared to 17 of Rawat, with later scrapping past by wafer thin margin of four votes.
Similarly in these elections Teerath Singh Rawat secured 308 postal votes as compared with 80 received by eventual winner Yashpal Benam. Rawat lost the election by 11 votes.
An analysis of the postal ballots in the past elections shows a clear inclination of the serving armed forces personnel towards BJP. One reason of this inclination is that the party made Major General B C Khanduri (Rtd), Chief Minister of Uttarakhand and a cabinet Minister in the NDA Government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. In this election lt General TPS Rawat (Rtd) is contesting from lansdowne where large numbers of serving and retired armed forces personnel reside.
The political pundits opine that they postal ballots could play an important role in many constituencies located in mountainous areas.
In Kedarnath assembly constituency 2349 postal votes were received in the elections of 2012 while in Rudraprayag the number of such votes was 1477.
Similarly there were 1730 postal votes each were received in Chaubattakhal and lansdowne assembly constituencies. Srinagar and Yamkeshwar are other constituencies where 1267 and 1117 postal votes were received in the elections of 2012.
The BJP is hoping that the recent surgical strikes on terrorist camps across the line of Control, demonetisation decision coupled with image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi would ensure that majority of postal votes of men in uniform are in its kitty.