In the hills of UP, BSP is the party to watch

But the BJP Government, despite being in power for the past five months, has done nothing spectacular for Uttarakhand. The hill people complain of rapidly growing unemployment and under-development.

Till 1989, Uttarakhand had stood by the Congress in all the elections except 1977, when the Janata Party wave had swept it too. But the BJP appeared with a bang here in 1991, conquering all the four parliamentary constituencies.

The landslide victory was attributed to the BJP’s Ayodhya campaign, which found quite a few takers in thispredominantly upper caste region. The party also took advantage of the pro-statehood wave in Uttarakhand in 1994 following the then Mulayam Singh Yadav government’s decision to implement the Mandal Commission report. The killing of 14 activists of the movement in Muzzaffarnagar in police firing the same year also sharpened the feeling against the Samajwadi Party.

The euphoria for the BJP, however, did not last long. In the 1996 parliamentary polls, the party managed to retain just two seats, Almora and Tehri. Garhwal and Nainital were won by the newly-formed Congress(T) led by N.D. Tewari and Satpal Maharaj.

This time, there are no emotional issues that can help the BJP or the Congress. Moreover, they have to deal with a resurgent BSP that has been making inroads into the hill areas for the past two years. The party is contesting all the four seats this time.

The BSP has the 16 per cent Schedule Caste population in Uttarakhand backing it. While the Congress and BJP cite a much larger vote bank — uppercastes constitute 71 per cent of the population — the BSP has an ace up its sleeve here too. It is not only fielding mostly upper castes this time but its candidates are also defectors from either the Congress or the BJP.

Several of the BJP’s influential leaders, such as former Almora MP Jeevan Sharma and former Uttar Pradesh minister Harak Singh Rawat, are contesting on BSP tickets.

The hill people must also remember the Mayawati government’s decision to create two new districts, Bageshwar and Champawat, in Uttarakhand. The move had brought district authorities closer to the people of the area, promising faster development.

The BJP, however, should be gaining heart from its victory in 17 of the 19 Assembly seats in the region in the 1996 elections and the fact that it swept the recent polls for local bodies. But having burnt its fingers once by being complacent in the Assembly elections that followed the Babri Masjid demolition, it can hardly afford to take any chances.

They seek vote for PMshere

She is contesting the first election of her life. Yet Ila Pant, the BJP candidate, is no political novice. She is the wife of former Union Minister, K.C. Pant who joined the BJP four years ago when the Congress fortune was on the decline and that of the BJP on the rise. She has learnt the lessons of politics and knows what to cash in on and when. But that does not make her fight easy in Nainital. For, her rival is the Congress bigwig Narain Dutt Tewari.

Ila’s undoing seems to be her family’s self-imposed isolation from the region. Her husband abandoned the constituency after losing to a lesser-known Janata Party candidate, Bharat Bhushan in 1977.

Her rival Tewari has been trying to highlight the Pants’ apathy for the region. Tewari camp’s slogan reads: “She claims not to meet the pahadis (hill people) because they stink.”

Congress workers accuse K.C. Pant of doing little for the constituency while terming Tewari as “Vikas Purush” who, during his various assignments in the State andthe Centre, brought industries to the region.So Ila is seeking votes not for herself but to make Atal Behari Vajpayee the next prime minister.

The Congress reply is more ambitious. Its workers say Tewari is in the race for Race Course road. You have suffered much because of his loss to the BJP candidate, Balraj Pasi, in 1991. Had he been elected, he would have been the prime minister instead of Narasimha Rao,” say Congress workers.

It was this sympathy factor which worked wonders for Tewari in the 1996 election when he defeated Pasi by over one lakh votes. But Tewari isn’t getting much sympathy this time. This is why the UPCC chief has been camping here for the past 20 days.

Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav’s decision to field a Muslim candidate, Abdul Raoof Siddiqi, from here has compounded Tewari’s problems. Siddiqi is expected to sweep the major chunk of the sizeable Muslim vote bank in Haldwani, Kashipur and Bajpur areas. No wonder, Tewari has been extensively campaigning inMuslim-dominated areas. The BSP candidate, Sardar Niranjan Singh, is likely to take away a section of Sikh votes and almost the entire Dalit vote bank. The BJP and the Samajwadi Party are likely to get a major section of farmers’ votes because of their opposition to the “reckless” distribution of pattas (lease of land) to Dalits and Bangladeshi settlers by Mayawati during her term as chief minister.

However, Nainital veterans say chances are Tewari might still sail through. Because, he is fighting the battle of his lifetime — one which might make or marr his career.