Political temperature in U’khand soars with presence of Harish Rawat, Prirtam Singh in Delhi & Nishank, Vijayvargiya in Doon
Monday, 07 March 2022 | PNS | Dehradun
A sudden spurt in activity in both Congress and BJP, presence of senior leaders of Uttarakhand Congress in Delhi and arrival of former chief minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and national general secretary of Bharatiya Janata Party Kailash Vijayvargiya in Dehradun clearly indicate that both these parties are expecting a very close finish in Uttarakhand. The counting of the votes for the state assembly is slated on March 10 and the results would be declared on the same day.
The former chief minister and head of the campaign committee of Uttarakhand Congress Harish Rawat has been camping in Delhi for the last two days. Similarly the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Pritam Singh too is in the national capital. It is learnt that the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Ganesh Godiyal would also head for Delhi on Monday. The top trio of the Uttarakhand Congress is likely to meet senior leadership of the Congress party on Monday and discuss the strategy of the party in case of a hung assembly in the state. After the bitter experience in the states of Goa and Madhya Pradesh the Congress leadership is in no mood to give advantage to BJP in case of a neck to neck fight for the formation of government in Uttarakhand. The BJP leadership too has upped its activities on inputs that a hung assembly is on the cards in the state. The BJP leaders who till a few days ago were making lofty claims of 60 plus seats in the state are now admitting in private that the things are heading for a close finish.
The presence of the former chief minister Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank in Dehradun and his meeting with the governor of Uttarakhand Lieutenant General (retd) Gurmit Singh has given rise to speculations that the central leadership of the BJP has given a green signal to him to scout for the chances of government formation in case of a split verdict of people of Uttarakhand on March 10. Nishank had recently met the BJP’s national president J P Naddha in Delhi. The arrival of BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya in Dehradun further charged up the political atmosphere of Uttarakhand. Vijayvargiya is credited with engineering the coup in the Congress party in the year 2016 when Harish Rawat was the chief minister of the state.
The vice president of Uttarakhand Congress and spokesman Surendra Kumar told The Pioneer that though BJP has deployed Vijayvargiya in Uttarakhand, its nefarious plans would not be successful this time in Uttarakhand.
The past record of Uttarakhand suggests that barring the elections of 2017 when the BJP swept the election by winning 57 seats, the contest has always been close in assembly elections and the support of independents and smaller parties was crucial in government formation and providing stability to it.
The Congress and BJP leaders are said to be in touch with some of the independent candidates such as Sanjay Dobhal ( Yamunotri), Kuldeep Rawat ( Kedarnath), Rajkumar Thukral ( Rudrapur) and Umesh Kumar ( Khanpur). Similarly the UJP leader and former minister Dinesh Dhanai from Tehri and UKD stalwart and former cabinet minister Diwakar Bhatt from Devprayag too are in this list.
Apart from them the role of the BSP could be very crucial in case of a hung assembly.
