BJP appears to have an edge in Tehri, Pauri and Haridwar Lok Sabha seats

Three seats — Tehri, Pauri and Haridwar, all in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand — had been voting for the BJP since 1991, the era when the Ram lehar stormed the Congress bastion in the hills. But in 2009, something unexpected happened. All the five seats in the state went to the Congress.

Five years later, the BJP, however, reclaimed its supremacy, wresting all the five seats. In the 2017 assembly elections, the BJP’s performance was the best. It got a brute majority in the House by winning 57 assembly seats.

And now, Congress leaders say the charisma of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is fading fast in this election mainly owing to his “wrong decisions” such as demonetisation and the goods and services tax (GST). Unemployment is at its peak and the economy has been shattered, they say.

But independent observers say the BJP might have an edge in the three seats of Garhwal. A keen contest, however, is likely to take place in other two seats — Almora and Nainital in the Kumaon region — between the Congress and BJP, the two main parties in the state.

The BJP has fielded its best candidates in the election. From Tehri, the party is again betting on Rajyalaxmi Shah, daughter-in-law of former Maharaja the late Manvendra Shah. For the ruling BJP, royalty had been glittering like gold since 1991. In the past three decades, only once in 2007, a member of the royal family could not win the parliamentary election from Tehri, the erstwhile kingdom of the Panwar Rajput dynasty, which ruled this area uninterrupted during 1803-1948.

This time, Shah is pitted against Congress candidate and Pradesh Congress Committee chief Pritam Singh, who is contesting parliamentary election for the first time. Singh is a four-time MLA from Chakrata, which is part of the Tehri seat. But Shah, who belongs to the Nepalese royal family, gets support from more than 100,000-strong Gorkha community. She also commands a great respect in the region for being a consort of the “Boland Badri” (speaking Lord Vishnu). On the other hand, Singh too has a strong Jausari vote bank.

In Pauri, the Congress’s Manish Khanduri, a newcomer in the election, is facing an uphill task against the much experienced Tirath Singh Rawat, BJP national secretary.

Congress party sources admitted that Khanduri, son of the BJP’s former chief minister B C Khanduri, is virtually fighting a lonely battle without getting much support of the party’s local MLAs.

But Khanduri junior exuded confidence that he would win mainly owing to the wrong policies of the state and the central governments. Khanduri is mainly banking on the name and the fame of his father, who is considered to be a big leader in Pauri. Khanduri senior had won the seat five times.

In Haridwar, top BJP leader and former chief minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, the sitting MP, has an upper edge against Congress candidate Ambrish Kumar, a first-timer in a Lok Sabha election. Some people in Haridwar are even saying that the BSP may push Congress to third place in Haridwar. Just like Khanduri junior in Pauri, Kumar is also not getting help from top state leaders. This means that Nishank is likely to have a cakewalk.

Unlike Garhwal, the fight for the Nainital and Almora seats is going to be engrossing. The main reason is that the candidates of the Congress in these two seats — party General Secretary Harish Rawat (Nainital) and Rajya Sabha Member Pradip Tamta (Almora) — are very experienced.

As compared to state BJP President Ajay Bhatt, who is the BJP candidate from Nainital, the political stature of Rawat is much taller. Rawat, who is also in charge of the Congress in Assam, is known for his astute managerial skills in election. But his strenuous efforts against Bhatt are negated by the ire of the leader of the opposition, Indira Hridayesh. She is nursing a grudge against Rawat after the defeat of her son in the mayoral election in Haldwani. However, the high command has directed both Rawat and Hridayesh to bury the hatchet. In the changed scenario, Rawat is posing a formidable challenge at Nainital.

In Almora, Rawat’s protégé Tamta is locked in an intense tussle against Union Minister of State for Textile Ajay Tamta. In the battle of the Tamtas, it can be anybody’s game, observers said.

But one must not forget that the BJP is fighting against the Congress with the help of a formidable army of 57 MLAs against a weak strength of 11 MLAs of the latter.