Political analysts keep their fingers crossed in Uttarakhand, not able to predict?

The elections in Uttarakhand this time have been very interesting in the sense that the three political parties viz Congress, BJP and Aam Admi Party being extremely active and hectic trying to score victories over their immediate rivals. Despite being a small state sending merely five Lok Sabha seats to lower house of parliament, holding not much political significance, the saffron ruling party’s charismatic leader and prime minister held five massive public meetings with hordes of union ministers like Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh, Dharmendra Pradhan,national media chief of BJP Anil Baluni, chief minister MP Shivraj Singh Chouhan and several other important leaders including over ambitious Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhani leaving no stone unturned to elicit the voters’ support in the last lap of campaigning with money allegedly also playing a major role. The Congress party’s, star campaigners including Priyanka and Rahul Gandhi too held several meetings with sister brother duo making sure that the Congress takes fullest advantage of the anti incumbency factor despite BJP allegedly trying to polarise the state on religious lines blaming Congress n Harish Rawat of appeasing the minorities to elicit their support as usual. The third new entrant in the fray Aam Admi Party was also not behind with making its presence felt with a huge bang by announcing various freebies and the Delhi CM n Deputy CM Arvind Kejrival, Manish Sisodia n other leaders campaigning extensively. However, despite all this hulla balloo of BJP’s development plank and polarisation tactics and Congress party’s extensive campaigning including AAP’s freebie awarding techniques, the voters of the state are not in a position to predict the future results to be announced on 10 th March. The conscious voters and analysts living in Uttarakhand, including media, deeply analysing the situation are not in a position to come to any solid conclusion as to which party is coming to power with confidence. In tea stalls, restaurants, political party and media offices everyone is keeping there finger crossed as various analysts are still terming it a neck to neck fight not able to outrightly predict in favour of any particular party despite the hard fact that after every five years the elections have been alternated by both parties viz Congress n BJP. One time the saffron party and another time the Congress riding on the power saddle in the state. It is usually considered that if there is a massive voting it goes against the party in power, thinking that it is a vote in anger against the ruling party. However, despite so much of hectic campaigning and best efforts by BJP, Congress and AAP, the polling percentage in Uttarakhand had been 0.18 % less as compared to previous election in 2017, which seems to be negligible decrease. This has resulted in political parties and analysts being in a fix, not able to suitably predict as to which party will claim power in the state, especially after AAM AADMI PARTY coming in the fray impressively, for the first time. If we go by the previous poll percentage in Uttarakhand in 2017 assembly election, 65.55 % votes were polled in the hilly state, where as this time the increases is merely 0.18 percent, which is negligible compelling all the news analysts keeping their fingers crossed. However, various pre poll previous surveys of ABP C Survey and one of ETV ( post poll) has till date shown BJP as the party having an edge with Harish Rawat being a number one choice of the people as Uttarakhand CM. There are also post poll surveys of Congress getting majority over BJP with reports of both party getting equal number of seats with AAP and independents likely to be king makers procuring three seats etc. The political Pundits are not able to predict as to which way will the political wind flow after the voting by 53 lakh 46 thousand and 462 electorates in Uttarakhand. It may be recalled that before 2002 assembly elections the voting percentage was 54. 34% and Congress achieved power while in 2007 when the percentage of poll enhanced considerably, the Congress party lost to BJP. Similarly in 2012 when polling increased to 66.17% the ruling Congress party again came to power. But in 2017 the vote percentage fell down slightly viz 65.56% and Congress lost badly with BJP gaining 57 seats. The Modi charisma was at its peak then. However, the fact remains that Modi Charisma which was intact in 2019 parliamentary elections the BJP bagged all the five seats which it had bagged in early parliamentary elections as well breaking the political tradition. Conclusively, the analysts this time are not able to decide as to which party is bagging majority with BJP and Congress giving forty or more seats to them and one seat of AAP, two to BSP n two or three to UKD, these being just assumptions. Let’s, wait for 10 th March and keep the fingers crossed till then is the general voters view.