For pollsters, psephologists, and even the BJP and the Congress the result in Uttaranchal may have come as a big surprise. But definitely not for the citizens of the newly created state, who very consciously used the ballot to express the enormous degree of disillusionment with the incumbentBJP government.
The Congress, which won a simple majority, largely cashed in on the strong anti-BJP sentiment and thus won by default. The disenchantment with theBJP is evident in the fact that the Congress won despite struggling with infighting on election eve. In fact, the party has far excelled all its own optimistic projections.
The Congress victory is a severe jolt for the BJP, given that Uttaranchal has been its stronghold since the ’90s. The current 70 constituencies in the new state were culled from the 23 assembly segments in undivided UP in which theBJP had 18 seats while the Congress had just one.