Saffron Flies Again

It was said to be a neck and neck race by some opinion polls but the BJPmanaged to nudge the Congress out of power in Uttarakhand, falling short of a majority by just one seat in the 70-memberassembly andseems set to form the new government with possible help from the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal(UKD) and some Independents. UKD spokesman Shivanand Chamoli has alreadyindicated their willingness to go with the BJP.

The BJP won in 34 of the 69 constituencies (elections to the Bajpur constituency were countermanded due to the death of a Congresscandidate) where elections were held while the Congress won 21, the BSP 8, the UKD3. Three Independents - mostly Congress rebels - account for the remainingseats. The Samajwadi Party failed to win any of the 55 seats it contested, butthat was no surprise really as Mulayam Singh had been opposed to the veryformation of the state and does not enjoy any significant support-base in thehilly state.

But it did get very close in some cases, with thin margins of victories. UKD candidate Om Gopalwon by just seven votes from the Narendra Nagar constituency defeating Congress candidate SubodhUnniyal.

Incumbency was obviously a big handicap for the Congress as several of its top leadersin the state, including information minister Indira Hridayesh, transportminister Hira Singh Bist, education minister Narendra Singh Bhandari and forestminister NavPrabhat, losing the polls. But it was not smooth sailing for others as well. Former Chief Minister and BJP leader Nityanand Swami lost to Dinesh Agarwal of the Congress in the key Laxman Chowk seat.Similarly, UKD supremo Kashi Singh Airy was also defeated from the Kanalchhina seat.

Much before the elections were announced, Chief Minister N.D. Tiwari had atough task dealing with factionalism in the state Congress, and had an ongoingbattle with his state party president Harish Rawat who had made no secretof his differences with the chief minister or in alleging corruption by his ownpartymen. Price rise, corruption and unemployment, in addition to rampantfactionalism had made Congress' task that much more difficult. Clearly, fieldingMeira Kumar in the urban planes of Haridwar, Uddham Singh Nagar and surroundingareas did not help the Congress make any inroads into the stronghold of andgrowing popularity of the BSP which improved its tally by one seat.

Congress spokesman Surendra Agarwal made no bones about conceding defeatbut blamed the division of secular votes as responsible for the party's debacle.But BJP state president Bhagat Singh Koshiyari, who won from Kapkot Assembly seat, said the people rejected Congress because of its"anti-Uttarakhand policies". "All the 300 lal battis have been fused inUttarakhand," he claimed triumphantly, referring to the over 300 ministerial-level postsdistributed by Chief Minister N D Tiwari to Congress leaders in the state, whichincidentally was also opposed by the state Congress president Rawat and was madeinto a big election issue by the BJP. "We only saw lal battis [red lights atopofficial cars] during the five-year tenure of the Congress," Koshiyari said, addingthat the BJP would not be in the business of distributing these "lal battis".

But rumbles of discontent are already to be seen in BJP as well where all isnot well between the BJP state president Bhagat Singh Koshiyari and former unionminister Major General (retd) B C Khanduri,widely perceived to be the party's projected chief ministerial candidate. Whilethe AVSM-awardee did notfight the assembly elections, he enjoys the support of the party's centralleadership. He is the sitting Lok Sabha MP from Pauri Garhwal since1991 and carries the confidence of the BJP central leadership. He is widelyperceived to be an honest, upright, disciplined and efficientadministrator, who was the minister in charge of Prime Minister Vajpayee's petGolden Quadrilateral project. BJP's improved performance from Garhwal, which hadtraditionally been a Congress-stronghold, would also certainly go in his favour.But it remains to be seen whether he would be able to take along Koshiyari whocommands the state.

While officially, BJP maintains that the choice of Chief Minister would be taken by the party highcommand in consultation with the elected MLAs, Khanduri has made no secret ofhis eagerness for the CM's post, before or after the results. Given his overalladministrative ability, it also helps that Khanduri is a Brahmin from Garhwal.But it remains to be seen whether the hard-nosed, no-nonsense retired generalwho promises a corruption-free, accountable government would be able to takealong his state-party chief and ex-CM Bhagat Singh Koshiyari who enjoys thesupport of the RSS. Perhaps that explains why Koshiyari is the one who has beensummoned to the party headquarters in Delhi by Raj Nath Singh.