Winning confidence of the Congress Central leadership finally this time, the real test of newly appointed Chief Minister of Uttarakhand Harish Rawat's political acumen will be how he handles the 'regional imbalance' card that some regional satraps have thrown before him who are not so happy with Rawat's elevation.
The interesting fact is that personality-based politics is not new to this region. Even from undivided UP days, the issues of greater public interests had to play a second fiddle before that kind of politics in this region.
However, if veteran ND Tiwari's political wilderness had led to his comeback in electoral politics with his victory from Haridwar parliamentary constituency in 2009, some other party stalwarts like MP from Pauri Garhwal Satpal Maharaj have already shown their disappointment over Rawat's appointment as the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand.
Maharaj’s outbursts at the Congress legislative Party meeting in Dehradun held to nominate the CM of the hill State a few days ago has only given that impression. It is not the first time when Rawat had to face such hurdles. Even in 2002, when he was far ahead in the race for Uttarakhand’s Chief Minister's post, ND Tiwari spoiled his chances by occupying the top post in the Himalayan State.
And political rivalry of Tiwari and Rawat is known to all. Among their contemporaries, two stalwarts in ND Tiwari and newly appointed Chief Minister of Uttarakhand Harish Rawat, could never see eye to eye with each other on many issues. Tiwari’s ideological differences with Rawat always came in way of the latter. Rawat's supporters never rule out hands of Tiwari and his supporters in consecutive defeats of Rawat in Almora- Pithorgarh parliamentary seat in 1991, 1996 and 1999 and his wife’s defeat in 2004 in the same seat.
However, Rawat supporters here believe Tiwari's political downfall that began after the Hyderabad Raj Bhawan sex scandal in 2007, led to rise of Rawat when he made a stunning comeback in the electoral politics wining the Haridwar lok Sabha seat in 2009. But as it is widely believed due to the same personality clash among its leaders, the Congress central leadership had to finally hand over the reins of Uttarakhand to Vijay Bahuguna in 2012 despite knowing the fact that majority of MlAs were with Rawat.
This time perhaps it is Rawat’s mass appeal and a diehard Congressman attitude unlike many other Congress leaders here and challenges like the lok Sabha polls, that finally made the party high command to impose its faith in Rawat. But real challenge ahead before Rawat is how to deal with regional satraps like Majaraj who have made their intention clear and more importantly, how to win the lok Sabha polls ahead.