Congress mulls advancing Uttarakhand polls

The Congress is seriously considering advancing the Uttarakhand Assembly elections once the results of the trial of strength are officially announced after sensing that it will be the right strategy to check the BJP in the state. “The timing is in our side... we have to get mileage from the anti-BJP mood of the people in the state,” a senior Congress strategist said.

The term of the Uttarakhand Assembly ends in early March next year. This means the elections have to be held between January and February, that is in the next nine months. If a Congress government dissolves the state Assembly then the polls could be held in October-November this year.

The BJP managers might have succeeded in Arunachal Pradesh by installing rebel Kalikho Pul in February last taking advantage of dissension in the Congress Legislature Party against then CM Nabam Tuki, but they have miscalculated the Uttarakhand crisis.

“We should have transferred the Uttarakhand governor before undertaking the political operation there,” viewed a section of BJP MPs. According to them, the trial of strength should have been allowed. “The Harish Rawat government would have been either defeated or, if it survived, it would be seen as a weak government. This situation would have helped us in returning to power.”

The Congress managed the crisis. It has not only managed numbers but fought the battle in the high court and the Supreme Court.

At the AICC briefing, party spokesman and senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi steered clear of a question on whether after winning the trust vote, Mr Rawat should dissolve the House and order fresh election.

Several leaders in the party have been advocating such a course of action contending that it would help the party go to the people on the theme of “murder of democracy”.

On the trial of strength in the Uttarakhand Assembly, Mr Singhvi remarked, “We may have a reason to exult.” He, however, hastened to add that it is subject to the final result to be announced by the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Mr Singhvi said that the Congress assessment is based on the verbal accounts of MLAs, the way they sat in the House and reports in the media and it should be taken with a “bucketful of salt”.

“The political process has worked itself out. If we win, it will prove that such political misadventures are akin to a Himalayan blunder,” he said, taking a dig at the Modi dispensation.