It could also provide an excuse for other ministers to scout for a safe constituency The electorate of Uttarakhand has a history of defeating chief ministers
Thursday, 06 January 2022 | PNS | Dehradun
The speculation making the rounds that chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami would either change his constituency or contest from two constituencies including his Khatima assembly segment in the upcoming assembly elections could unnerve the cadre of the Uttarakhand BJP. The move could also provide an excuse for other BJP bigwigs including ministers to scout for a safe constituency.
CM Dhami himself gave credence to the rumors that he is planning to shift base from Khatima in Udham Singh Nagar when responding to the questions of media-persons after the rally of union cabinet minister Nitin Gadkari he said that wherever he will go Khatima would always remain close to his heart.
The experts opine that the talk of the CM changing his constituency would have an adverse impact on the morale of the BJP workers.
Senior Journalist Yogesh Bhatt told The Pioneer that for CM to change his seat he must have some solid reason failing which would give a wrong message to his party workers and give a tool to the opposition to attack the BJP government.
“I personally believe that the CM should not leave his traditional seat and should contest from Khatima. If he changes his seat the opposition would claim that the CM is doing this to evade defeat,’’ said a BJP worker.
The vice president and spokesperson of Uttarakhand Congress Surendra Kumar told The Pioneer that the CM Dhami and other senior leaders of BJP have seen the writing on the wall and are now scouting for a safe seat. He added that the Congress party has consistently said that the BJP government has done nothing in the last five years and had it done anything then its leaders should not have even thought about changing seats.
CM Dhami is a two time MLA from Khatima assembly constituency. In the last assembly election he had defeated Bhuwan Kapdi of Congress by a margin of 2709 votes. Interestingly the Congress party has now made Kapdi as one of its four officiating presidents. The party is certain to field him again from Khatima.
The assembly elections in the past have not proved a cakewalk for the chief ministers. The first chief minister of Uttarakhand Nityanand Swami faced defeat in the first assembly election at the hands of Dinesh Agarwal. It is another matter that Swami was not CM at that time as the BJP had removed Swami ahead of the elections and made Bhagat Singh Koshyari as the chief minister. In 2012 BJP went to the elections with ‘Khanduri Hai Zaroori’ slogan. Shockingly the then CM Khanduri lost to Surendra Singh Negi by a margin of 4,623 votes from Kotdwar. In 2017 assembly elections the then CM Harish Rawat lost from both assembly seats. He lost to Swami Yatishwaranand from Haridwar rural and Rajesh Sukla of BJP from Kiccha assembly constituencies.
