Uttarakhand: Congress faces rout, can Harish Rawat stop the slide?

By Sanjeev Singh Dehradun: No solace is in sight for the Congress, which is staring at its worst political debacle across the country, in hill state Uttarakhand. The party had won all five seats here in 2009; it might lose all of them this time. But Chief Minister Harish Rawat is not giving up yet. The Uttarakhand witnessed its worst natural disaster in June last year – as many as 5,700 people were ‘presumed dead’ by the state. The Congress government led by Vijay Bahuguna then came in for widespread criticism for the slow rehabilitation work. Also, it is widely believed that a lot more lives could have been saved if Bahuguna had “reacted” to the situation quickly. Things have gone from bad the worse for the party ever since the calamity struck.[caption id=“attachment_1442923” align=“alignnone” width=“300”] Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat. Image courtesy PIB[/caption] The Congress has done some damage control by replacing him with Rawat, but repeating the earlier result is almost a lost cause now. Realising that his predecessor Bahuguna had made only promises and delivered little, he set about changing that impression. “There have been 2,500 Government Orders (GO’s) passed since he came to power. Bahuguna didn’t work for party, but our new CM has given faith to party workers,” says Narendra Rana, Congress worker from Bahuguna’s erstwhile Lok Sabha constituency Tehri. “Earlier, an SDM needed to take permission from the state if had to allocate more than Rs 1 lakh. He has now given a free hand to our officers, and that has helped the state machinery take quick decisions and impact a larger audience at the local level,” said a bureaucrat on condition of anonymity. But all this appear inadequate to undo the damage caused by Bahuguna. Bahuguna antagonised the farmers when he decided to go ahead with the Rs 600 crore bottling plant to be set up by multi-national beverage giant Coca Cola in the lush green area of Charba village, Dehradun in April last year. Environmentalists were up in arms when the MoU was signed. They claimed it would adversely impact the hill state’s fragile ecology. The final nail in the coffin was his decision to back two cement units in Tiuni and Someshwar areas of the state in December 2013. The ambitious project was worth Rs 5,000 crore of investment producing nearly 5.5 million tonnes of cement in limestone rich areas. Magsaysay Award winner Chandi Prasad Bhatt was critical of the government’s move. “Tiuni region is known for its apples orchards. State government should rethink on opening the cement plants in both the places, after considering the various aspects of its effect on agriculture and ecology,” he had said. The impression fast gained ground that the government didn’t learn its lesson from the tragedy of flash floods earlier that year. Rawat has openly voiced his concern over these projects. He said, “I am not focusing on industrialization. The immediate task is rehabilitation.” The Congress is now hopeful of being able to pull it back during the Lok Sabha elections even though the BJP is likely to field three former chief ministers in this election. Ramesh Pokhriyal “Nishank” (Hardwar), Bhagat Singh Koshiyari (Nainital) and Bhuvan Chandra Khanduri (Pauri Garhwal) are the likely candidates. Rawat is pushing for his daughter Anupama Rawat as the Congress nominee from Hardwar, a seat wrested for the Congress by Rawat himself after a gap of 18 years in 2009. The party is also fancying its chances in the two seats of Nainital and Almora from the Kumaon region. Nainital has sizeable Muslims to go with the SC/ST votes which they hope to win over. While sitting MP from Almora, Pradeep Tamta is hoping to cash in on the hard-earned goodwill of Rawat who hails from that region. “There is no denying the mass appeal of our new chief minister in the state. It will be added advantage for our party that he belongs to Kumaon. Rahul Gandhi has kept his promise of making a grassroot leader as chief minister of the state,” says Tamta. Rawat’s no-nonsense approach has made an impression, but he knows that he has ruffled feathers of other bigwigs in the state. He will have to do a balancing act with the likes of Satpal Maharaj, Yashpal Arya, Nav Prabhat and Indira Hriyadesh. And he appears to be working on his mass appeal as a people’s man to rein in factionalism. Now Congress seems to be moving beyond the era of “Bhishma”, former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, ND Tiwari.