A day before the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) is rolled out in Uttarakhand on Monday, the extent of the BJP’s sweep of the local body polls in the hill state became clear as the party won 10 of the 11 mayoral posts, wresting two from the Congress. With this massive win, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami cemented his leadership in the state in the “semi-final of power”. Even as the Congress drew a blank in the mayoral posts, the BJP put up a strong show in the polls to 43 municipal councils and 46 nagar panchayats in which it won or was leading in 32 of the total 89. The BJP won the mayoral polls in Dehradun, Rishikesh, Roorkee, Haldwani, Almora, Kashipur, Rudrapur, Pithoragarh, Kotdwar, and Haridwar. In the newly constituted municipal corporation of Srinagar, the home turf of state Education Minister Dhan Singh Rawat, Independent Aarti Bhandari was declared the winner while the BJP came second. In Roorkee, Rishikesh and Pithoragarh, the Congress was pushed to a distant third. In the Dehradun mayoral poll, the first electoral test for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) following the exit of its CM face Ajay Kothiyal after the 2022 Assembly polls, the party polled fewer votes than NOTA. With counting still ongoing for the councils and panchayats, as of Sunday evening, the BJP had won 32 nagar panchayats while the Congress won 27. Independents won 28 while the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) bagged two. In 2018, the last time local body polls were held, the BJP won six mayoral posts (including one with the support of an Independent), while the Congress won two. The Congress was marginally better than the BJP in the municipal council polls back then, winning 14 chairperson posts as against the latter’s 13. Since then, a few councils have been upgraded to corporations. In the nagar panchayat polls five years ago, the BJP won 17 chairperson posts while the Congress bagged seven. A total of 11 Independents emerged victorious in the polls for council chairperson while the number stood at 12 for nagar panchayats. Reading the results This victory is important for the BJP as it marks a period of steady consolidation after some tumultuous times during which it changed its CM thrice. As Dhami began his second term as CM in 2022, former CMs Tirath Singh Rawat and Trivendra Singh Rawat had accused his government of being corrupt. Even as the BJP won 47 seats in the 70-member Assembly under his leadership in 2022, Dhami himself suffered a blow after he lost his Khatima seat and was later elected to the Assembly in a bypoll from Champawat. The CM was quick to take a dig at the Congress as the results trickled in. “Is baar bechari EVM bach gayi (this time, the poor EVM is saved),” he said in a reference to the Congress’s allegations of EVM tampering and other irregularities in some elections in other states. Local body polls, however, are held through ballot papers. Union Home Minister Amit Shah took to X to congratulate Dhami and the state BJP. “The landslide victory of the BJP in the Uttarakhand Municipal Corporation elections is a victory of people's trust in the development work of Modi ji and Chief Minister Shri Pushkar Dhami ji. Many thanks to the people of Devbhoomi for this immense support and many best wishes to State President Mr Mahendra Bhatt ji and all the workers of Uttarakhand BJP for this victory,” Shah wrote. While local body polls usually revolve around local issues, this time the BJP’s campaign this time revolved around UCC, demographic changes, and other Hindutva narratives. The Congress, already reeling under high-profile exits and rebellion over ticket distribution, failed to effectively counter the BJP’s narrative. This marks a further loss of ground for the Opposition party that failed to retake power in the hill state in 2022. That was the first time since Uttarakhand's creation in 2000 that an incumbent government was not voted out. The Opposition party lost several high-profile contests in the local body polls. It failed to retain its mayoral seat in Haridwar, the home turf of former CM Harish Rawat, losing by more than 28,000 votes. In 2022, Rawat’s daughter Anupama won the Haridwar Rural Assembly constituency. In the Lalkuan nagar panchayat in Nainital that falls under the Lalkuan Assembly seat Rawat lost in 2022, the Congress lost to an Independent. The party also lost the mayoral election in Haldwani by more than 3,000 votes. In Pithoragarh, where ticket distribution woes saw Congress vice-president (organisation) Mathura Dutt Joshi quit and MLA Mayukh Mahar rebel, the party finished third. Here, the BJP’s Kalpana Devlal defeated Monika Mahar, an Independent supported by Mayukh, by 17 votes. In the Almora municipal corporation that encompasses Ranikhet, the Congress finished second. Ranikhet is the turf of state Congress chief Karan Mahara. Congress spokesperson Garima Dasauni said the party would reassess its strategies, pointing out that the performance in the municipal councils and nagar panchayats of hilly areas such as Chamoli and Uttarkashi provided a silver lining. “We will review what went wrong on the organisational as well as the administrative front. Regarding Pithoragarh, we have written to the high command and it is their decision. We expected Mayukh to resign but he did not. We have now sought his expulsion. We will have to work harder and prepare for the next polls,” she said.
