Giving tickets to former Congress leaders played in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday as the party secured 56 out of the 70 Assembly seats in the Uttarakhand Assembly elections.
A majority of the Congress “rebels” who fought on BJP tickets won with vast margins.
Pradeep Batra, a rebel who had fought from Roorkee in the previous state Assembly elections, this time stood on a BJP ticket from the same constituency and yet secured 40,000 votes, while Suresh Chand Jain of Congress stood second with 27,458 votes. Interestingly, Suresh Chand Jain had quit BJP after the party had decided to give tickets to Congress “rebels”.
Among other Congress rebels who won on BJP ticket from their earlier constituencies are Kunwar Pranav Singh from Khanpur with 53,192 votes; Subodh Uniyal from Narendranagar with 24,104; Rekha Arya from Someshwar (SC) with 21,780 and Umesh Sharma (Kau) from Raipur with 59,764 votes.
However, those Congress rebels who lost from their former constituencies after fighting these election on a BJP ticket included Shailendra Mohan Singhal from Jaspur constituency, who stood second with 38,347 votes, while Adesh Singh Chauhan of Congress secured the first position with 42,551 votes. On the other hand, Shaila Rani Rawat who fought from Kedarnath on a BJP ticket could not make it to even the top three spots in her constituency.
Saurabh Bahuguna, who along with his father Vijay Bahuguna — former Chief Minister — had quit the Congress to contest on a BJP ticket from Sitarganj constituency, secured 50,597 votes, while Malti Biswas of Congress stood second with 22,147 votes.
Harak Singh Rawat, who contested from Kotdwar secured 39,859 votes and won in his constituency on a BJP ticket after he had led the rebellion against Harish Rawat last year. With a huge margin, Surendra Singh Negi stood second with 28,541 votes from Kotdwar. Satpal Maharaj, a senior leader who left the Congress before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls to join the BJP, contested from Chaubattakhal seat and secured 20,921 votes, while Rajpal Singh Bisht of Congress stood second with 13,567 votes.
While Yashpal Arya who contested from the reserved constituency Bajpur and secured 54,965 votes, his son Sanjeev Arya scored 30,036 votes from Nanital constituency. Yashpal Arya was seen as the Congress’ Dalit face, but joined the BJP along with his son after speculation that the Congress was denying him a candidature for his son. Both Bajpur and Nainital are reserved constituencies for the Scheduled Castes. Another Congress rebel who won on a BJP ticket is Kedar Singh Rawat who contested from Yamunotri and secured 19,800 votes, while Sanjay Dobhal of Congress stood second with 13,840 votes.
While some experts speculated that anti-incumbency facilitated the BJP’s victory, others suggested that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity played a big role in BJP’s win since the major issues that people in Uttarakhand were discussing were development and restructuring of the state in the aftermath of devastating floods in 2013.