BJP and Congress central leaders stay put at Dehradun with their fingers crossed. Count down begins, with counting to decide the fate either of the two national parties

The count down has begun. Tomorrow is the much awaited counting of the five state elections that will decide the fate of various political parties in the fray. In Uttarakhand, a state that sends merely five Lok Sabha and three Rajya Sabha MPs to Delhi with a seventy member assembly having been 22 years old, the activities are quite hectic, of particularly two national parties viz the BJP and Congress, never ever felt before with their national leaders and observers camping at Dehradun and holding parleys with their state party leaders highly optimistic of forming their respective governments.

The ruling party at the centre as well as in the state seems to be most enthusiastic, claiming to form the government winning more than sixty seats whereas depending on the anti incumbency factor mostly, the Congress party, losing Punjab, is also extremely enthusiastic claiming to form its government winning at least 48 seats.

However, they are highly apprehensive of allegedly losing their lawmakers at the hands of the saffron party in case the party wins or loses by a razor thin margin, after counting. Similarly, on a defensive mode with anti incumbency factor likely to kill its chances though over enthusiastic on the polarisation plank of majoritarianism, the BJP leaders too are afraid of Congress party’s tactical moves in case it secures a thin margin victory.

Hence both BJP and Congress have deputed their senior leaders, expert in manipulative games to manage things if their respective parties win marginally.

According to sources there are reports that the Congress party has made necessary arrangements to send their lawmakers to either Rajasthan or Chattisgarh in case the BJP loses with a thin margin requiring few additional MLAs to cross the 35 magic figure to form it’s government.

The Congress is afraid that the two senior leaders of BJP viz Kailash Vijayvargiya and former union minister n former Uttarakhand CM Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank are very well versed in managing things, working as the trouble shooters of the party in the past. It may be recalled that in the past these leaders have proved to be assets for the party by managing things when there were critical situations working as trouble shooters.

Moreover, in 2012 when the Congress got 32 seats and BJP 31 with the then CM Major General Khanduri losing from Kotdwar, the BJP high command had lost hopes, not trying to arrange MLAs from other camps thus losing to Congress in numerical game, which it could have managed as it did in Manipur and Goa. The BJP do not want to commit that blunder this time if the margin is razor thin.

It is this basic reason that the party has quite in advance deputed the master manipulators like Vijay Vargiya, Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank on the job who had already met some of the prospective winning independent lawmakers seeking their support in favour of BJP, with one name being of Sanjay Dobhal of Gangotri.

GThe saffron party is so enthusiastic of winning the election that not only had it organised a meeting of all its lawmakers, office bearers of state and district levels including counting agents with the national leaders of BJP like Mr. Gautam, Nishank, Kailash Vijayvargiya, Prahlad Joshi, Madan Kaushik and UK CM etc training its counting agents to be extra vigilant, it has also instructed all the key leaders to tighten their belts to ensure that BJP forms its government in Uttarakhand breaking the tradition of the last twenty years of ruling party never repeating for the second time.

On the other hand, faction ridden Congress party leaders are holding their separate meetings with Pritam Singh huddled in Dehradun Congress office with his group and Harish Rawat sitting at home relaxed eating exotic apple chips advising people to encourage A grade apple chips in Uttarakhand. The Uttarakhand Congress chief Ganesh Godiyal has meanwhile expressed full confidence of Congress returning to power and forming its own government with a full fledged majority as said by Harish Rawat and Pritam Singh too, earlier on number of occasions.

The central High command of Congress party has deputed Deepender Hooda as a new central observer, apart from Mohan Prakash and Devendra Yadav having been appointed earlier, who all have reached Dehradun to supervise all arrangements and ensure victory of the party by being extra vigilant on the counting day. The scars of the 2016 BJP engineered defections of 11 lawmakers is still fresh in the mind of Congress leaders and therefore they do not want to take any chance this time, say sources.