Uttarakhand angle in Delhi Assembly Elections 2020

While the major political parties viz AAP, BJP and Congress are contesting on all the 70 seats in Delhi with merely 4 seats given to the Janata Dal ( Nitish) by BJP, only two candidates of the regional political party of Uttarakhand, Uttarakhand Kranti Dal are contesting from Patparganj and Burari Assembly constituencies, banking exclusively on Uttarakhandi votes accusing all the three major parties of always misusing and misguiding the Delhi Uttarakhandi voters to derive maximum political advantage but never allotting them enough tickets during elections of parliament, Assembly or municipal corporations.

Delhi has a large chunk of Uttarakhandi voters to the tune of more than 25 lakhs approximately after Poorvanchali voters who comprise of 40 to 45 lakh population and about 35 lakh votes. While Poorvanchali candidates are fielded in good numbers by all political parties, Uttarakhandies hardly get adequate representation. This time too the political parties have denied due representation to the Uttarakhandi candidates with BJP alloting two tickets, one to a five-time sitting MLA from Karawal Nagar Mohan Singh Bisht and another, to a new entrant Ravi Negi from Patparganj, whose chances to lose are very high as he has been fielded against deputy chief minister and AAP’s number two after Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia.

Similarly, the Congress party has also sidelined Uttarakhand’s interest and obliged a single candidate from Patparganj namely Laxman Singh Rawat, a district president. Similarly the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal has fielded Tejpal Singh Rawat from here. This means that three Uttarakhandies are contesting from Patparganj, an Uttarakhandi dominated constituency where the division of Pahari votes is inevitable giving a solid advantage to Manish Sisodia at the hustings.

However, the Aam Admi Party has not accorded a single ticket to Pahari candidate though they have formed an academy of Garhwali, Kumaoni and Jaunsaari Academy pleasing the community to a great extent. But in Burari legislative constituency things are different. There is only one young Pahari candidate namely Ranjeet Singh Budakoti against the AAP, Congress and BJP candidates. This constituency has a sizeable Pahari population comprising of approximately forty thousand or more votes. The Uttarakhand Kranti Dal’s senior leaders and president Vipin Tripathi are concentrating their efforts here trying to polarize the Pahari votes raising the issue of Uttarakhand pride and asking for Pahari votes after all the major political parties of Delhi has ditched the Uttarakhandies in every election.