Hours before the elections in Uttarakhand, some leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are busy calculating equations in the assembly constituencies at the party office in Dehradun. Unlike the 2017 assembly elections, when the BJP was clearly taking the lead, it seems to be less about the party and more about the individual candidates.
Interestingly, this is perhaps the first time the BJP has aggressively projected the Hindutva story in the Himalayan state in 2022 elections. In the last four assembly elections, since Uttarakhand was carved out of Uttar Pradesh in 2000, the BJP’s election campaign has revolved around state-specific issues such as migration, corruption and development. However, the Hindutva story has taken the front seat in this election campaign.
On February 12, the last day of campaigning, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami played a trump card by promising a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) if the BJP was re-elected in the state. This came as a surprise to many not only in the party but also in the opposition. UCC has been one of the main issues of BJP.
Asked what was talked about UCC in the last phase of the election campaign, Chief Minister Dhami told News18 in a television interview, “Uttarakhand shares international borders (with Nepal and China). It is necessary to protect the state culturally… There is a need for uniform laws for citizens, irrespective of religion.”
UCC is one of the election promises that have been included in the BJP manifesto recently. Earlier this week, the BJP promised to amend the anti-conversion law to prevent ‘love jihad’ – a term used to describe alleged ‘forced activity’ involving inter-religious relations. Besides this, the party has promised district level committees to check unruly activity of buying land of ‘outsiders’ and threatening the ‘demography’ of ‘Devbhoomi Uttarakhand’.
However, a section within the BJP is unsure whether issues like UCC and love jihad will help. However, one of the BJP’s minority leaders feels otherwise. “As a party, the BJP has to ensure that our main supporters remain with us. I am sure that raising Hindutva issues will pay dividends,” said Shadab Shams, BJP’s prominent minority face in the state.
The BJP and the opposition Congress have been at loggerheads over most of the seats in the 70-member assembly. The News18 team traveled extensively in some parts of the state and observed that more than the party, it is the image of the candidate that matters among the voters.
Congress election committee chief Harish Rawat, who is contesting from Lalkuan constituency, said that Congress has an edge over others this time. On BJP’s Hindutva issue, Congress’s poster boy Rawat said, “This is not an issueless election. Voters are facing BJP candidates and hence issues like UCC etc have come up for the purpose of diverting attention.
About 12 seats, especially in the plains, are dominated by minorities. In the 2017 elections, the BJP easily won many such seats, bringing Hindu voters under the umbrella of ‘Hindutva’. However, this time factors like Dalit pride and farmers’ issues have come to the fore in ‘complex constituencies’.
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