From being the sole regional political party having played an active role in creation of Uttarakhand state, which once had four MlAs in the Vidhan Sabha to its present state of struggling to re-establish its political presence and influence, the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal has come a long way since its formation in 1979.
The UKD was founded in July, 1979 in Mussoorie, under the chairmanship of the then vice-chancellor of Kumaon University, DD Pant. It was not only the sole regional party of this State but also the first political party to raise the demand for creation of Uttarakhand State.
In 1994, the party also played a role in steering an anti-reservation protest into a broader movement in support of the demand for a separate state. One of the party stalwarts Indramani Badoni, also referred to as ‘Gandhi of Uttarakhand’ for his leading role in the statehood movement which had remained non-violent despite provocation from varied quarters, was elected to the Uttar Pradesh assembly as an independent candidate from Devprayag constituency in 1977. He used non-violent means including hunger strike and folk ballads to fuel the Statehood movement but died in 1999 before the creation of Uttarakhand in 2000.
Many may not know that a candidate of the regional party won an assembly election before creation of Uttarakhand. It was in 1980 that UKD candidate Jaswant Singh Bisht became its first member elected from the Ranikhet legislative assembly seat during the times of undivided Uttar Pradesh. In 1985, Kashi Singh Airy won from the Pithoragarh constituency from where he was elected once again in 2002 after creation of Uttarakhand state in 2000.
Political analysts opine that party leaders like Kashi Singh Airy, Diwakar Bhatt and BD Raturi were unable to lead the party to a better position after Badoni’s demise. Despite the major role it had played in the statehood movement, the party failed to win mass support of the electors in the 16 years since formation of Uttarakhand. It has so far also failed to achieve its aim of establishing a viable third front to provide the voters an alternative to the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party. The party went through a period of turmoil when the then UKD president Trivendra Singh Panwar announced withdrawal of support to the BJP led State government in 2010 but the party’s MlA in the cabinet Diwakar Bhatt did not resign from his post. Panwar ordered Bhatt’s expulsion for life from the party for not resigning from the cabinet. This resulted in the creation of two factions in the party at first with the number of factions rising subsequently as the years progressed to about a dozen factions.
Following successful reunification efforts culminating in 2016, the party under its present chief and former MlA Pushpesh Tripathi has fielded its candidates from 55 Vidhan Sabha constituencies out of the total 70 constituencies. Blaming failures and corruption in successive state governments headed by the two national parties Congress and BJP, the UKD is seeking a chance from the voters to develop the state as intended with the focus being on the development of the mountainous region – for which the state was created. Political analysts state that the UKD has a unique history among political parties in the state. However, it remains to be seen whether the party is able to regain public trust and whether the present and future of the party will be as good, better or worse than its past when it had four MlAs in the Vidhan Sabha.