Friday, 22 March 2024 | Gajendra Singh Negi | Dehradun
Operation Lotus
Determined to score a hat-trick of parliamentary election victories by winning all the five seats of Uttarakhand with bigger margins than it did in the year 2019, the BJP top brass has seemingly unleashed ‘operation lotus’ in the Himalayan state. This operation being conducted with such a surgical precision has sent the opposition Congress literally into scurrying for cover. So far the saffron party has succeeded in winning over leaders such as Rajendra Bhandari, Manish Khanduri, Vijaypal Sajwan, Malchand, Dhan Singh Negi, Shailendra Rawat and Kesar Singh Negi among others into its fold. It is interesting to note that the operation so far was concentrated in Garhwal region and now the saffron camp is likely to shift its focus to Kumaon region. It would be interesting to see how the Congress triumvirate-Harish Rawat, PCC president Karan Mahara and LoP in assembly Yashpal Arya, all hailing from the region- will take rear-guard action to keep their flock together in Kumaon region.
Local boy ploy
Faced with the daunting task of snatching Garhwal Lok Sabha seat- deemed a saffron bastion- from BJP’s clutch, the seasoned Congress candidate Ganesh Godiyal has taken resort to the tried and tested ‘son of the soil v/s outsider’ tactics. A discerning politician that he is, Godiyal knows only too well that it would be pretty tough to combat the saffron party’s mighty, well-oiled poll machinery and the vast resources at its disposal in a constituency where all the assembly constituencies are being held by BJP MLAs. With the lone Congress MLA from Badrinath having become a turncoat in a dramatic manner, team Godiyal has revised the poll strategy by projecting him as the local boy and his opponent- the BJP candidate Anil Baluni- as an outsider who has been foisted from Delhi. Addressing public meetings in local dialect interspersed with theatrics and repartees and never failing to evoke Garhwali pride to win over hearts seem to be meeting with success. He is hoping to repeat what legendary Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna did in the summer of 1982 when, while throwing down gauntlet to then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, he contested from Garhwal constituency as an independent and trounced the Congress candidate Chandra Mohan Singh Negi, sending the iron lady into impotent rage who had tried every trick to humble the Garhwali satrap.
Nishank spurned
The denial of party ticket to the BJP stalwart Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank from Haridwar Lok Sabha constituency which he represented for ten years since 2014 is being viewed as a great setback to the maverick politician. For a person who started his political career in 1991 from Karanprayag assembly constituency of undivided Uttar Pradesh, Nishank has always remained at the forefront of BJP’s electoral politics, contesting assembly and parliamentary elections and donning positions such as hill development minister in 1997 to the chief minister of Uttarakhand and Union Minister of Human resource development in the Narendra Modi cabinet. His uninterrupted engagement in the hurly burly of electoral politics has now ruptured with BJP high command shunning him to bet on the former CM Trivendra Singh Rawat in the battle of Haridwar. The political observers are viewing the ticket denial to Nishank as culmination of his long and eventful political career and end of an era in Uttarakhand BJP dominated by the triumvirate of Maj Gen (retd) BC Khanduri, Bhagat Singh Koshyari and Nishank. However, his camp followers are confident that their leader will bounce back to the political centre-stage like the mythical phoenix which is never vanquished.
