Unlike its performance on the national level, the Bharatiya Janata Party is heading for a near sweep in Uttarakhand, mirroring its stellar own performance from 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The BJP is currently leading in all five seats -- including the three seats where it has fielded sitting MPs. For the BJP, which appears to be staring at a substantial fall in its seats this election, its Uttarakhand performance comes as a silver lining. The party, which is aiming to secure an ambitious third term under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has been targeting 370 seats on its own across India and 400 plus with its other National Democratic Alliance partners, is leading in 239 -- notably shy of a simple majority of 273. The Uttarakhand performance also comes despite problems such as unemployment, migration, paper leaks, and the controversial Agniveer scheme dominating the state's political discourse this election season. According to the website of the Election Commission of India, at the time of filing this report, BJP’s sitting MP Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah was leading in Tehri Garhwal with over 2.66 lakh votes against Congress candidate Jot Singh Gunsola. This would be the sitting MP’s third consecutive win. In 2019, Shah, a member of the erstwhile Garhwal Kingdom, beat senior Congress leader Pritam Singh by over 3 lakh votes. Meanwhile, after a brief lead in the early trends, independent candidate Bobby Panwar is now trailing in the third place. In Garhwal, BJP national chief spokesperson Anil Baluni, who’s contesting his first Lok Sabha election, is leading against former Congress state president Ganesh Godiyal by over 1.54 lakh votes. In 2019, Uttarakhand’s ex-chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat won the seat for the BJP by beating the Congress leader Manish Khanduri. Khanduri joined the BJP in March, just before the general election was announced. In Almora, sitting BJP MP Ajay Tamta leads against Congress’s Pradeep Tamta by over 2.25 lakh votes. In 2019, Ajay defeated Pradeep by a margin of over 2.32 lakh votes. Likewise, BJP’s sitting MP Ajay Bhatt, who beat former CM Harish Rawat in 2019, leads on Nainital’s Udham Singh Nagar seat by over 3.34 lakh votes. Here, he’s up against Congress’s former national secretary Prakash Joshi. In Haridwar, former CM Trivendra Singh Rawat is leading against Harish Rawat’s son Virendra by over 1.60 lakh votes. In 2019, former CM Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ won this seat for the BJP. On its part, the Congress attributes its losses to the elections being held in the first phase for Uttarakhand. According to Congress's state media in-charge Garima Mehra Dasauni, another factor was that senior party leaders like Harish Rawat, Pritam Singh, and Yashpal Arya sat out the election. Significantly, although the state’s Congress unit had been pushing Harish Rawat to contest the polls from Haridwar, the former chief minister recommended his son’s name for the seat. “The early phase of the elections worked against us because momentum started shifting in our favour only in the later phases. Our manifesto and guarantees also took some time to reach the public," Dasauni told The Indian Express. The BJP, meanwhile, credited the victory in part to the strategy drawn up by its state president Mahendra Bhatt. “This big victory has great significance in the interest of the state. Uninterrupted development works will gain momentum in the state and Uttarakhand will become the best state in the country under the leadership of Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami,” the party media in-charge Manveer Singh Chauhan said. ‘Narrowed margins’ According to data from the Election Commission of India, the BJP secured 56.79 percent votes -- a slight decline to the 61.01 percent votes it secured in 2019. Meanwhile, the Congress’s vote share went up marginally to 32.85 percent votes from 31.40 percent in 2019. Meanwhile, 7.46 percent of votes went to 'Others' and 1.09 percent to NOTA. On his part, Congress state president Karan Mahara claims that the party did better this time around and was able to narrow its margin on nearly all seats in the state. Like Dasauni, he too believes the outcome would have been different if the election had been held later and if senior leaders of the party had contested. "Yashpal Arya ji should have contested from the Almora seat, Pritam Singh from Tehri Garhwal, and either Harak Singh Rawat, Harish Rawat, or I should have contested from Haridwar. If that had happened, the results would have been different," he said. While addressing party workers, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami called the NDA’s performance “historic” and said people of the country had given it a record third mandate. “The people of Uttarakhand had previously dispelled the myth of frequent government changes. Now, for the third time, the state has delivered a significant victory for the party on all seats,” he said.
