Uttaranchal’s latest pawn

Usually a staid pilgrim town, Hardwar buzzes with activity only during theKumbh Mela. The fair is over in May and the town goes to sleep ...

Usually a staid pilgrim town, Hardwar buzzes with activity only during theKumbh Mela. The fair is over in May and the town goes to sleep rightthereafter, to stir only in the next spring. But this year, Hardwar wasrudely jolted awake in the first week of August. The alarums andexcursions had nothing to do with faith. There were no trademark Kumbhstampedes or disasters either. Instead, the residents of the holy city weretaken aback to find politics in their midst for the first time. Centralpolitics, at that.

It was only after weathering a bandh and a few rallies that the common manfigured out the cause of such intense political activity: Union HomeMinister Lal Krishna Advani’s announcement of his intention to includeHardwar in the proposed state of Uttaranchal.

Before the BJP top brass took the decision, they had not seen fit to takeinto their confidence either the residents of Hardwar or the local leadersof the party. The latter showed admirable restraint, putting up a bravefront and discovering’ diverse reasons to justify their supreme leader’sdecision.

But why did Advani take such a decision, without a formal proposal orendorsement from the state? None of the three resolutions passed by theUttar Pradesh Assembly on the issue — in 1991, 1994 and 1997 — recognisedHardwar as part of Uttaranchal. The most plausible answer is — politicalexigency yet again. At one stroke the BJP leadership has achieved twoobjectives: to save their government at the Centre as well as in UP. At theCentre, it was facing the threat of a withdrawal of support from theShiromani Akali Dal if Udham Singh Nagar was included in Uttaranchal. TheUdham Singh Nagar Bachao Samiti leaders had demanded the inclusion of moredistricts in the plains like Bijnore, Hardwar, Saharanpur, Moradabad andBareilly, in order to strike a demographic balance between the hill peopleand those from the plains in the future Uttaranchal.

By including Hardwar in Uttaranchal, Advani has kicked off an agitation bythe opposition parties. By linking Hardwar and Udham Singh Nagar, he hasensured that the new state can’t be formed until the two disputes aresettled. And that gives the BJP breathing room to deal with the Akalis. Thecold feet that the SAD leaders have developed during the past fortnight areample testimony to the success of Advani’s political strategy.

The Home Minister’s decision to delay the creation of Uttaranchal has alsosaved the Kalyan Singh government in UP, which enjoys the support of 224MLAs in a house of 425. The BJP won 18 out of a total of 19 Assembly seatsin the Uttaranchal region in the 1996 elections. The state government wouldthus be reduced to a minority after the formation of Uttaranchal 206 seatsin a house of 406, a wafer-thin majority.

The Samajwadi Party MLA from Hardwar, Ambarish Kumar, senses a "conspiracy".“Since none of the three MLAs from Hardwar district belong to the rulingparty (two are with the Samajwadi Party and the other is with the BahujanSamaj Party) they get a comfortable majority if this district too isincluded in Uttaranchal.” In a house of 403, the ruling alliance will have206 seats.

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But Kalyan Singh’s problems don’t end here. His coalition partners, theJantantrik BSP and the Loktantrik Congress, have threatened to do aJayalalitha on him if Hardwar is made a part of Uttaranchal. “We will nothesitate to pull down the state government,” says Naresh Agrawal, theLoktantrik Congress legislature party leader. It appears that Hardwar is setto remain in the news. For reasons that, for the first time, have nothing todo with religion. It’s only that it has become a pawn in the most importantpolitical game in north India.