New Delhi: The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has improved its 2014 performance in the hill states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. Like in the 2014 polls, the party has won all seats in the states – five and four respectively – and has bettered its vote share which was already above 50% in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
In Himachal, the BJP’s vote share has increased from 53% to 68.95%, and in Uttarakhand from 55% to 60%.
The Congress, the principal opposition party in both states, has further lost political space as its vote share has reduced from 34% to 31% in Uttarakhand and from 41% to 27% in Himachal.
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In Uttarakhand, even former chief minister and Congress party stalwart Harish Rawat is trailing by over three lakh votes in the Nainital constituency.
Manish Khanduri, the son of former chief minister B.C. Khanduri of the BJP, who was contesting on a Congress ticket is trailing by almost three lakh votes in Garhwal. Senior leader of the BJP Tirath Rawat is in the lead with almost five lakh votes having been counted in his favour.
The BJP had also swept the assembly elections held in the state in 2017 winning 57 of the 70 seats, while the Congress had won only 11. The BJP’s vote share had been 46%.
In Himachal, the BJP’s Anurag Thakur is leading by a margin of almost four lakh votes from the Hamirpur constituency. In Kangra, a constituency with a large tribal population, BJP’s Kishan Kapoor is leading by almost five lakh votes having polled over 70% of the votes counted.
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In the 2017 assembly elections, the BJP had won 44 of the 68 seats in Himachal with a 48% vote share. The Congress had registered wins in 21 seats with a 41% vote share.
Both the hill states see a two-party contest between the BJP and the Congress with power alternating between the two parties. However, after the 2014 sweep by the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls, and the resounding wins in the assembly elections in 2017 and now a staggering improvement in vote share, the BJP looks set to dominate the political landscape in both Uttarakhand and Himachal.
The campaigns of the two parties in the 2019 polls largely focused on national issues and glossed over the significant local issues faced by people in these regions. In Uttarakhand, for instance, migration from villages to urban centres and the lack of employment opportunities are major issues which did not feature significantly in the political campaign of both parties.
In Himachal, the issue of non implementation of the forest rights act and non-payment of dues of apple growers have largely been ignored by both the BJP and the Congress.