An Uttarakhand silver lining as BJP heads for clean sweep in state

Unlike its performance on the national level, the Bharatiya Janata Party is heading for a near sweep in Uttarakhand, mirroring its stellar own performance from 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The BJP is currently leading in all five seats — including the three seats where it has fielded sitting MPs.

For the BJP, which appears to be staring at a substantial fall in its seats this election, its Uttarakhand performance comes as a silver lining. The party, which is aiming to secure an ambitious third term under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has been targeting 370 seats on its own across India and 400 plus with its other National Democratic Alliance partners, is leading in 239 — notably shy of a simple majority of 273.

The Uttarakhand performance also comes despite problems such as unemployment, migration, paper leaks, and the controversial Agniveer scheme dominating the state’s political discourse this election season.

According to the website of the Election Commission of India, at the time of filing this report, BJP’s sitting MP Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah was leading in Tehri Garhwal with over 2.66 lakh votes against Congress candidate Jot Singh Gunsola. This would be the sitting MP’s third consecutive win. In 2019, Shah, a member of the erstwhile Garhwal Kingdom, beat senior Congress leader Pritam Singh by over 3 lakh votes.

Meanwhile, after a brief lead in the early trends, independent candidate Bobby Panwar is now trailing in the third place.

In Garhwal, BJP national chief spokesperson Anil Baluni, who’s contesting his first Lok Sabha election, is leading against former Congress state president Ganesh Godiyal by over 1.54 lakh votes. In 2019, Uttarakhand’s ex-chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat won the seat for the BJP by