‘In Mahabharat, Bhishm Pitamah was the eldest but led the battle for 10 days. Those much younger yielded early’

The first task before our government will be resource mobilisation as revenue earnings have gone down and the economy is not in a good state. The GDP has stagnated. Reviving the economy and fulfilling all other promises will go hand in hand. The administrative sector also needs tightening.

You regularly mention ‘Uttarakhandiyat’. How would you define it?

The local traditions, culture, jal jameen aur jungle (water, land and forest), and crafts of the state are collectively ‘Uttarakhandiyat’… My predecessors might have done a lot of big works, but they did not focus on those connected to our identity.

As the Congress campaign head, how much pressure is there on you?

There is mental pressure, we cannot deny that… After polls in these five states there will be elections where the BJP and Congress are main contenders, so these elections will have an impact on that. We can see this in the past. Before 2002, the Congress lost state after state, just like today. But we won in Uttarakhand, and it turned things around… Therefore, we do have the pressure to win, not just for ourselves and the state, but also for the Congress. Rahul Gandhi must also come back (as party president), but that should be through party elections. We want him to take charge as soon as possible.

The Congress had its worst performance in the last Assembly elections (11 OF 70), and the BJP has started calling you Haar-da instead of Har-da… They are claiming they will get more than 60 seats.

I wonder how the BJP predicts a number. Last time they said 57 seats and they got 57. This can happen only when things are predetermined… This is how Shakuni used to work in Mahabharat. The dice would show the same number he asked for. People should vote for a strong government, Uttarakhand needs stability. We ask the voters to give us a comfortable majority.

How do you see the third party in the fight this time, Aam Aadmi Party?

I do not see them anywhere in the political scenario of Uttarakhand as of now. It will be accidental if they win any seat… Earlier Arvind Kejriwal was someone who stood for change and people experimented with him. But now he is going to states where the BJP and Congress are in a direct fight… You weaken the prospects of the Congress… Still, I believe, if AAP works hard in Uttarakhand for five-seven years, they might get some recognition.

The Congress is constantly accused of Muslim appeasement… The BJP says that as CM you declared Friday as holiday.

This is a 30-, 40-year-old formula of the BJP. Their IT department is creating fake information and propagating it… For five years, I have been asking them to show me the government order (on Friday holiday). It is so impractical, no one will even consider this. There was never even a demand. This is all a brainchild of the BJP’s evil mind… If I answer them, I will be fighting them on the ground they want me to.

Similarly, there is talk of a ‘Muslim University’ in Uttarakhand. I came to know about this only through a journalist. I only remembered opening a Sanskrit University in Haridwar… They (the BJP) posted morphed photos of me with a fake beard. The Election Commission made them remove the beard. I would suggest that BJP leaders use that beard on themselves. Some of their leaders already have a similar look.

The BJP does not have any answer to questions on what they have done in the last five years. All they did was change Chief Ministers. There is massive unemployment, inflation, corruption. They left people to die during the Covid pandemic…

It is said that the Congress has a Harish Rawat lobby, and an anti-Harish Rawat lobby.

This is there in every party. We are a democratic party and it is the essence of such a party. However, this does not affect the prospects of the party in Uttarakhand… And the BJP should not talk about it as they face the same in their party. Three different Chief Ministers were not declared for no reason.

Did you have a role in the return of Harak Singh Rawat, who was involved in destabilising your government in 2016, to the Congress? You said he should issue an apology before joining.

Such decisions are made by the party. I told the party what I felt. I said that (at the time) democracy was crushed. Also, the person who joined the party gave a public statement regretting his actions.

You cannot be very rigid in politics. What I did in 2016 was the requirement of that time, and what we do now is the requirement of today. We managed to break away a person (Harak Rawat) from the BJP. His return re-confirmed that what happened in 2016 was wrong. We will now try to turn him into a big asset for the party.

The BJP is building a narrative of old vs young CM in Uttarakhand. You are 73 and CM Pushkar Singh Dhami is 46. You see merit in this comparison?

This would be a valid argument if they had not used the trial and error method to decide on a CM. A person who had not held any post for over four years and had no administrative experience was suddenly made the CM. He was only brought to create a narrative for the elections. No one is going to buy the BJP argument. Government is a collective formation, and it includes both young and old guards. In a state like Uttarakhand, experience has its own strength.

You have given subtle indicators that this might be your last election. Are you considering retirement?

All this depends on the political circumstances. If we return to power at the Centre in 2024, I will be the happiest. I will leave for nirvana. If the circumstances need me to keep fighting, how can I leave the fight? In Mahabharat Bhishm Pitamah was the eldest but led the battle for 10 days. Those much younger yielded early.

Should the Congress have named a CM candidate?

This is a very complicated question, and an orthodox one. However, there is a saying that ‘dulhan wahi jo piya man bhaye (the bride is one who pleases the groom)’. Suggestions or recommendations of the public cannot be ignored, cognizance has to be taken. As far as I am concerned, I will follow the party tradition of deciding the CM later on.

Are people going to vote for Harish Rawat?

To a certain extent. It is possible people have feelings for me. I am a factor, I can say. People also compare my government with this government.