Uttarakhand bypoll setback: State BJP chief admits tickets to turncoats a ‘mistake’

While the Manglaur seat that the BJP lost in the recent bypoll has never been won by the party, the Badrinath defeat stung as it was another seat associated with a religious shrine that the party lost in the year of the Ram Temple construction.

Bhatt, who took over as the Uttarakhand BJP chief two years ago, said at the state working committee meeting Monday that the losses were not as damaging as they seemed.

“In the Manglaur Vidhan Sabha seat, where we used to fight for the third position or to save our deposit, we lost by just 422 votes… In the Badrinath Vidhan Sabha seat, there was just a 200-300 vote difference in each round till the end. (But) We will assess this, we will assess several other issues too because in the recent Lok Sabha elections, we had won the same (Badrinath) Vidhan Sabha segment by 8,000 votes,” he said.

However, one reason that Bhatt admitted has come to the fore since the loss is the party giving tickets to leaders crossing over from the Congress. He said this was a “mistake”. “During the Lok Sabha (elections) we promised the MLAs from other parties who joined us that we will give them tickets for the Assembly seats… I will assess this,” Bhatt said, adding that it was his promise that Badrinath would be wrested back by the BJP soon.

The BJP had fielded Rajendra Singh Bhandari for the Badrinath seat bypoll, who lost to the Congress’s Lakhpat Singh Butola by 5,224 votes. The by-election had been necessitated by the switch of Bhandari, a three-time Congress MLA and former minister, to the BJP in March, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, and his consequent resignation as MLA.

Incidentally, Bhandari and Bhatt have a long history of poll rivalry. In 2007, when Badrinath fell under the Nandprayag Assembly seat before delimitation, Bhandari had defeated Bhatt by a slim margin from the constituency. Then in 2012, with the seat now called Badrinath, Bhandari had again won, this time against the BJP’s Prem Ballabh Pant. In 2017, Mahendra Bhatt defeated Bhandari by 5,364 votes, but in 2022, Bhandari defeated the state BJP chief by 2,066 votes.

However, despite this, there was no real opposition to Bhandari joining the BJP from any camp. Senior BJP leaders attended the event where he was welcomed into the party.

Butola’s victory against Bhandari means that the BJP no longer holds all the 14 Assembly segments falling under the Garhwal Lok Sabha constituency.

In Manglaur, a seat the BJP has never won, its Kartar Singh Bhadana lost the bypoll to three-time MLA and senior Congress leader Qazi Nizamuddin by 422 votes. In the Muslim-dominated seat, the fight has always been between the Congress and the BSP.

The brother of noted politician Avtar Singh Bhadana (Congress), Kartar used to be a BSP leader and joined the BJP only in March. Before moving to Uttarakhand to try his political fortunes, Kartar was a BSP leader in Haryana, and prior to that, a member of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) under Om Prakash Chautala, with whom he also served as a minister once.

Kartar, incidentally, also tasted success in Uttar Pradesh on a BSP ticket, winning from Khatauli Assembly seat in 2012.

In the 2002 Uttarakhand Assembly elections, Nizamuddin, running as a BSP candidate, defeated the Congress’s Sarwat Karim Ansari. In 2007 too, Nizamuddin won as a BSP candidate, defeating the RLD’s Chaudhary Kulveer Singh, with Ansari (Congress) finishing third. In 2012, however, Ansari and Nizamuddin switched sides, and as a BSP candidate, Ansari defeated Nizamuddin, who ran for the Congress. In 2017, Nizamuddin wrested the seat back, but in 2022, lost to Ansari by a slim margin of 598 votes.

Kartar and Bhandari were among several prominent leaders from the Congress who joined the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, including Anukriti Gusain Rawat, the daughter-in-law of senior Congress leader Harak Singh Rawat, and Manish Khanduri, the son of BJP stalwart and former Uttarakhand Chief Minister B C Khanduri.