Uttarakhand: High Turnout in BJP held seats has party worried. Rushes state leaders to Delhi for a pow-wow with Amit Shah

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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.

Uttarakhand - Why Harish Rawat's decision to stand from Haridwar could be a Game Changer

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HARIDWAR: In all the 11 assembly constituencies in Haridwar district, Dalits and Muslims are in a position to decide the winner, and candidates of various parties are leaving no stone unturned to woo these sections of voters. According to 2011 Census, of the total population of 18,90,422 in Haridwar district, there are 6,48,119 Muslims (34.28%). There are 13,05,266 voters in these 11 constituencies, and Muslims, on an average constitute 20% of the voters in each assembly seat of the district. There are more than six constituencies such as Roorkee, Piran Kaliyar, Bhagwanpur, Manglaur, Khanpur, Jwalapur, etc where the percentage of Muslim voters can be as high as 25%.

“In any of these 11 seats, the first choice of Muslim voters is a candidate of Congress. And if a candidate of BSP emerges as a strong contender owing to the strength of Dalit voters on any seat, Muslims have a tendency to deviate from Congress and support BSP, only to defeat BJP. This because they are of the opinion that Congress, after the polls, might join hands with BSP to form the government,” said Rao Munfet Ali, a local advocate.

While Muslim votes have a tendency to veer towards Congress or BSP, Dalits, who support BSP here, may turn towards BJP this time, primarily due to the Modi factor, say political analysts. "We believe that PM's party might actually bring something good to our community," said Rama Kumar, a Dalit from Laksar. Jwalapur and Laksar are believed to be strongholds of BSP due to the large number of Dalit voters.

Read the full article: HERE

Uttarakhand: Internal Survey of BJP concedes defeat & Plight of Congress defectors within BJP

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Not sure of the authenticity of this letter but this has been going viral on twitter. A BJP candidate, Rekha Arya in a letter concedes defeat in Uttarakhand and quotes an internal survey of BJP that projects Congress with 43 seats to BJP’s 25 seats.  Interestingly, Rekha Arya is a Congress defector to BJP and she writes to Vijay Bahuguna ex Chief Minister of Congress who also defected to the BJP. She confesses her career is over, if she loses. Interesting letter as it provides an insight of the plight of Congress defectors within BJP.. 




Uttarakhand HuffPo-CVoter Poll: Congress Surging, BJP Losing Steam

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The latest HuffPo-CVoter opinion poll published last night suggests a neck-to-neck contest between Congress and BJP in Uttarakhand. The election accordingly would be too close to call if voting takes place today as the numbers fall within the poll’s Margin of Error (MoE) of + 3%. 

Coincidentally, a Congress internal survey early January this year projected themselves a minimum of 33 seats, with 11 more seats where they stood a good chance of winning. Our critique of this internal poll could be found HERE. This HuffoPo-CVoter poll seems to validate their claims.

However if a time series comparative analysis is undertaken between a clutch of polls carried out between December 2016-January 2017 and the latest HuffPo-CVoter opinion poll, it paints an entirely different scenario. It clearly reveal that Congress is currently riding a strong surge, eating into the vote shares of both the BJP and ‘Others’ while the BJP is virtually behaving like a punctured balloon. 

From an all time high of 55.9% vote share registered during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP is currently down to 38.7%. This amounts to a whopping 17.2% negative swing, a clear indication that the momentum is now clearly against the BJP. 

The Congress on the other hand had registered a 34% vote share both during the 2012 Assembly as well as 2016 Lok Sabha polls. Accordingly, if CVoter projections are to be believed, the Congress has gained nearly a whopping 5% vote swing, indicating that the momentum is clearly with them. It follows that the Harish Rawat government is actually being buoyed by a significant pro-incumbency wave in their favour though pre-polls by and large had been screaming they are facing massive anti-incumbency though the HuffPo-Cvoter poll preferred to describe it as “anti-incumbency sentiment among voters also appears to be relatively low”!!

Besides, opinion polls generally tend to underestimate the Congress and over estimate the BJP’s vote shares. Even in 2012, pre-polls had by and large projected a BJP win and had to eat crow on result day. So if polls like CVoter are now projecting a neck-to-neck fight, in all probability the Congress may even go to this Saturday voting having a 2-3 % vote lead over the BJP that would be suffice to generate a landslide victory within the context of Uttarakhand electoral realities.

During the Modi Wave in 2014, the BJP had been successful in attracting a chunk of Dalits and Muslims and it is primarily these sections that are now primarily jumping out of the BJP’s sinking ship. The BJP had been hoping that Mayawati’s BSP would be fairly resurgent enough to mop up these deserters from their 2014 support base, preventing Congress from gaining their votes. Unfortunately, ground reports suggest that such calculations are not holding (Read: HERE). The SP-Congress alliance in Uttar Pradesh contagion effect on Uttarakhand apparently is inducing Muslim consolidation around the Congress. This leaves the BSP to only scalp for Dalits as their vote base. It is quite possible that even a section of Dalits, fully aware of BSP’s low winning probability, may be tempted to tactically switch their support to the Congress, which is probably why ‘Others’ are also projected by CVoter as also losing vote share.

The CVoter poll also confirmed that the Congress was sweeping Kumaun Hills while indicating the BJP “is poised to do well in Garhwal” Hill region. The battle for Uttarakhand therefore boils down to the contest for the Terai-Maidan plain region which find have a large concentration of Muslims and Dalits. Here is where Harish Rawat played his master stroke. The Congress is not known in the recent past of having demonstrated a sense of strategic suaveness. Perhaps the induction of Prashant Kishore into the campaign helped to drive some strategic blood transfusion into them. The result is that Rawat strategically contests from two seats - Kichha and Haridwar (Rural), both falling in the plain areas. This, the Congress feels this would improve their strike rate in around 33 seats in the plains region.

A close look at the 2012 assembly polls clearly showed that the Congress party’s performance was below the expectation in these two districts. In Udhamsinghnagar, the Congress could win only two seats — Bajpur and Jaspur — while rest seven seats had gone in favour of BJP in 2012 assembly polls. Similarly, out of the 11 seats which Hardwar district accommodates, Congress could win only win three seats - Piran Kaliyar, Roorakee and Khanpur. Harish Rawat by going to the lion’s den was leading from the front and this act of raw courage in turn raises the confidence and motivation of the Congress cadres. 

Besides, the hill regions, Kumaon or Garhwal have a traditional rivalry between them. And it is something that has been playing out in Uttarakhand since long before it became a state. The divide between the two regions is so stark that it nearly cost the Kumaoni chief minister his chair last year. It was a rebellion by Garhwali leaders that led to defection from the Congress. Since Garhawli can hardly be considered a Congress bastion, the electoral costs in terms damage to the Congress had not been much as compared to what the optics did in the sphere of the larger political battle of public perception. By contesting in the plains, Rawat attempted to send out a strong signal of personal neutrality in the state. The Congress hopes, that through such a signal, some inroads could be made into the Garhwal region, a BJP bastion.

Once again, we are providing in tabular form the strengths and weakness of both the BJP and Congress


 


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