Congress candidate Mamta Rakesh having won the Bhagwanpur Assembly by-poll, defeating BJP candidate Rajpal by 36,909 votes, has made the clout of Chief Minister Harish Rawat almost invincible within the party ranks. With the BJP nursing its wounds, the Congress camp is elated having swept through strings of by-elections, winning by good margins.
The triumphalism in the Congress camp is natural, given the fact that the ruling party has won all the four Assembly by-polls held so far, crushing the BJP to a pulp. Chief Minister Harish Rawat, an adroit strategist as he is, gave the BJP a run for its money by foisting Mamta as the candidate. Once the name of the candidate was announced the Congress all but won the seat, as it was a foregone conclusion that she would ride the crest of sympathy wave generated in the wake of the untimely demise of her husband, a popular Dalit leader.
However, flaunting humility as is his wont, the CM refused to boast. He attributed the victory to the people of the constituency. "The victory would doubtless motivate me further to go the whole hog to develop the state," he said, adding that the outcome is a precursor to what is kept in store for 2017 Assembly election.
Former Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, despite being stayed put in the constituency for days to change the tide of things in his party's favour, has failed to wrest the seat. Notably, the constituency falls within his lok Sabha constituency-Haridwar.
Ironically, Surendra Rakesh had won the seat in 2012 election as a BSP nominee. later, he was expelled from the party. By making Mamta a Congress candidate, the CM has sent a clear message to the PDF-a ragtag alliance of non-BJP and non- Congress MlAs that if they consent to contest on Congress tickets in the next Assembly election he would take initiative on their behalf.
This a clear strategy of absorbing the fringe parties in the Congress mainstream. "If things go the way Harish Rawat wants there would be nothing left of the PDF by the time the next Assembly elections would be held. The Congress would gobble them up, by stealth, one by one," said an observer.
The day his party tasted a crushing drubbing, the leader of the Opposition Ajay Bhatt embarked on his advanced char dham yatra. Other saffron leaders would do the same on April 17. The BJP leaders are seeking consolation in cold statistics. They say their vote share in the particular Assembly segment has increased considerably. While in the last election the party nominee had polled around 10,000 votes in 2012 the number has touched around 22,500.