There is rising rhetoric around “demographic change”, “minority appeasement” and “spit jihad” as Uttarakhand heads for the November 20 bypoll to the Assembly seat of Kedarnath. The election was necessitated by the death of BJP MLA Shaila Rani Rawat. So far, neither the BJP nor the Congress have announced their candidates for the seat. The by-election is considered highly significant, especially for the BJP given that Kedarnath is home to the revered shrine and given that the party lost the religiously significant Faizabad (which covers Ayodhya) Lok Sabha seat and Badrinath Assembly constituency earlier this year. The Congress, buoyed by its bypoll victories in Manglaur and Badrinath in July - just over a month after the BJP's clean sweep of the state in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections - is hoping for another boost with a win in Kedarnath. The significance of the contest is getting reflected in the shrill tones of the two parties. Days ago, BJP state president Mahendra Bhatt said his party will “reject any attempts to divide Hindus or change the region's demographic identity”. He also accused Congress MP Rahul Gandhi of “dividing society, lying about reservations, and attacking Sanatan Dharma while pretending to defend Kedarnath's reputation”. In response, senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister Harish Rawat accused the BJP of trying to “incite Hindu-Muslim tensions ahead of the Kedarnath election”. Claiming the party is fearful of a loss, he suggested the BJP was once again resorting to divisive tactics to secure votes on religious lines – allegations that Bhatt has denied. While the BJP has claimed the Congress was “distracted by infighting”, the Congress’s chief spokesperson in the state, Garima Mehra Dasauni, has responded by accusing the BJP of spreading rumors. The BJP insists that its allegations regarding “demographic shifts” in the state are “connected to initiatives by specific communities to threaten Hindu identity”. The Congress counters by calling the BJP’s language alarming, and indicating “a communal agenda designed to fracture communities for electoral advantage”. Now, so-called “spit jihad” has entered the political lexicon, spilling over from neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, which has also issued an ordinance to check activities such as spitting into food of customers at eateries, allegedly driven by religious motivations. Two tea sellers were arrested earlier this month for allegedly spitting into a saucepan in Mussoorie. In a speech days after the incident, CM Pushkar Dhami said his government would stridently oppose religious conversion, “land jihad and thook (spit) jihad” in ‘Devbhoomi’ Uttarakhand. Days later, the state government issued food safety guidelines - including a massive increase in fines for offenders - for the state’s hospitality industry.
