The BJP is set to record a hat-trick of clean sweeps in Uttarakhand with the party winning two and leading in three seats with margins above 1.5 lakh votes till 8 p.m.
Known as Devbhoomi (the land of gods) that has prominent Hindu shrines such as Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri, the State is dubbed as the BJP’s political laboratory where the party recently brought the controversial Uniform Civil Code (UCC) law. People have given a clear mandate to the saffron party even when the State faced environmental and man-made crises such as land subsidence in Joshimath and the tunnel collapse in Silkyara.
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Ajay Bhatt, who had served as Minister of State (MoS) Defence and Ministry of Tourism, won the Nainital-Udhamsingh Nagar seat by 3,34,548 votes. The constituency had faced one of the worst riots in the State in the past decade. Five people were killed and more than 10 were injured in Haldwani during an anti-encroachment drive when the civic agency demolished a mosque and Madrasa allegedly built on government land.
In Haridwar, former Chief Minister Trivendra Rawat won by 1,64,056 votes. Haridwar, known as gateway of Uttarakhand, is home to religious ‘Akharas’ and an important pilgrimage site for Hindus. Here, the Congress had fielded Virendra Rawat, son of former Chief Minister Harish Rawat. It was in Haridwar where religious leaders of the Hindu community organised a ‘dharma sansad’ (religious gathering) in 2021 and threatened Muslims in the presence of BJP members. Many of those who participated in the event were later arrested followed an outrage.
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From the Garhwal seat, the BJP’s backroom boy Anil Baluni was ahead by 1.5 lakh votes. The Congress’s Ganesh Godiyal aggressively campaigned to capitalise on people’s anger towards the Centre’s Agniveer scheme but failed. Uttarakhand is home to more than 1.9 lakh ex-defence personnel, including 50,000 Army and war widows and this region of the State has highest number of ‘fauji’ votes.
Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah, the titular queen of the erstwhile Tehri Garhwal kingdom, was leading against the Congress’s Jot Singh Gunsola by 2.6 lakh votes and is poised to win the seat. In Almora, the BJP’s Ajay Tamta was leading by 2.2 lakh votes and is expected to defeat the Congress’s Pradeep Tamta.
Congratulating the winners, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said that he is “deeply grateful to the people of Uttarakhand for the blessings given to the party in the form of huge mandate.” “Our double engine government will continue to work with the same promptness to achieve the goal of Antyodaya while serving the people of Uttarakhand,” he said.
