Uttarakhand: High Turnout in BJP held seats has party worried. Rushes state leaders to Delhi for a pow-wow with Amit Shah
Saturday, February 18, 2017
The HindustanTimes
reported that BJP's top 4 CM contenders in Uttarakhand were asked to rush to
Delhi by the high command to discuss the post-poll scenario.
The four BJP leaders
were Satpal Maharaj, Bhagat Singh Koshiyari, BC Khanduri and Trivendra Singh
Rawat had a closed-door meeting with the party’s national president, Amit
Shah in Delhi.
Maharaj, a spiritual
leader, who contested the election from the Chobattakhal assembly constituency,
is the BJP’s national executive member. Rawat, a BJP national secretary, is
contesting from the Doiwala assembly constituency. Former chief ministers and
incumbent parliamentarians Koshiyari and Khanduri have not contested the
election this time.
The move comes amid
reports that the mountain state is headed for a hung assembly with the ruling
Congress and the opposition BJP in a close fight. The post-poll surveys and
media reports contradict the claims of both parties to win 45-50 seats in the
House of 70.
Except for 2014 Lok
Sabha elections, the battle for Uttarakhand is traditionally very closely contested
– within 1% margin. In 2012, the Congress shot into a single seat lead by just 0.3%
vote share difference.
Even
though the BJP’s poll strategists publicly air confidence that the saffron
party would come back to power in Uttarakhand, the high voting percentage
registered in some of key Assembly constituencies is also a cause of concern to
them.
Polling
on 69 Assembly seats in the hill state took place on Wednesday and the state
registered a total voting percentage of 68 per cent, marginally higher than the
last elections, 66.6 per cent. However, high voting percentage on seats
including Sitarganj, Khatima and Haridwar (rural) has left the BJP extremely worried.
These seats were won by the BJP last time and higher voting percentage is
attributed to anti-incumbency.
From
Sitarganj, the BJP had fielded Congress rebel and former chief minister, Vijay
Bahuguna’s son Saurabh Bahuguna. This seat was won by the BJP in 2012 but its
MLA, Kiron Mandal, vacated it for Mr Bahuguna. Mr Bahuguna had joined the BJP
in May last year.
CM
Harish Rawat is contesting from the two other constituencies — Haridwar (Rural)
and Khatima, earlier represented by the BJP. In all these three key
constituencies, voting percentage crossed 60 per cent. In Dehradun, Mr Rawat
has claimed the Congress will perform even better than expected. State unit
chief Kishore Upadhyay also said the Congress will make a strong comeback by
winning 46 seats. He said Mr Rawat played the role of “Arjuna” in the polls.
Before the polls, they both were leading two separate camps.
These claims apparently unnerved the BJP and caused them into panic mode.
These claims apparently unnerved the BJP and caused them into panic mode.
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