Uttarakhand reported less polling compared to 2014 general election, Pauri Garhwal records leass than 50% polling

COMPARED TO 2014, THE POLLING WAS LESS IN EVERY CONSTITIENCY OF UTTARAKHAND WITH PAURI GARHWAL RECORDING 49.84%

The low polling in Pauri Garhwal and Almora parliamentary constituencies have once again established the fact that while the voters of these two Lok Sabha seats have shown little interest towards electing their public representatives in view of the complacent behaviour of the incumbent state government towards resolving their problems n grievances, it has also once again brought into focus the increasing exodus of village population to the town n cities for want of better job avenues and quality educational n health facilities for their children and themselves.

Sounds quite unusual that on the one hand when people are talking of extreme Modi undercurrent, two parliamentary constituencies considered to be comprising of conscious n literate voters record merely 49.84% ( Pauri) and 48.78% ( Almora) votes which are six and five percent less then the previous election of 2014 when the saffron n Modi wave for change was on the peak.

BJP’s national secretary Tirath Singh Rawat and union state minister of textiles Ajay Tamta are fighting against Congress party’s Manish Khanduri and Rajya Sabha MP Pradeep Tamta from these contituencies, respectively.

This less than fifty percent voting in these two constituencies unambiguously vidicates the concern that mass level exodus/ migration of village populace is still continuing and those who had shifted outside these two areas have not come to vote this time either due to their preoccupation with their jobs or had little interest in polling, having lost faith in both the political parties and their leaders or nominees.

During the last election of 2014 Pauri Garhwal parliamentary seat reported 55.03% voting while Almora reported 53.22% voting.

Almora is the single reserve constituency amongst the five constituencies of the Uttarakhand hills.

Similarly, the Tehri Garhwal parliamentary constituency led by the sitting MP Rajya Lakshmi Maharani Tehri has reported 54.38% polling against the 57.50% polling of the 2014 election.

This means that Tehri Garhwal too witnessed four percent less polling compared to the previous election leading us to believe that here too migration of village population is effective or people have little interest to vote for their future MP.

Sources reveal that in Tehri Garhwal constituency, people were not very happy and satisfied with the performance of the sitting BJP MP Maharani Rajya Laksmi, who’d hardly visited the constituency in the last five years.

But the Modi factor compounded with the visits of several heavy weights like Hime Minister Rajnath Singh, former MP n CM Bhagat Singh Koshiyari n BJP supremo Amit Shah have helped her regain her lost battle.

The Congress party’s state president, former minister and five time MLA from Jaunsar Bhabar, Chakrauta Pritam Singh is the Maharani’s rival from here.

Son of the former minister in Uttar Pradesh government Pritam Singh is a Congress heavy weight having quite a good reputation in the entire Chakrauta/ Pashwadun belt comprising of 1.5 lakhs to 2 lakhs votes.

The contest here is of a head on collision nature with both parties leaving no stone unturned to wrest on each other. The polling percentage in the prestigious Nainital constituency has been 66.39 whereas in Haridwarit’s 66.24%.

While the voting tally is quite good in these two constituencies as compared to Pauri, Tehri and Almora constituencies but compared to 2014 it’s still three and five percent lesser.

In 2014 Modi wave, the polling percentage in Nainital was 68.89 and in Haridwar 66.24%. This trend of 4 to ten percent less voting in all the five constituencies clearly states the fact that either the people of Uttarakhand has shown less interest in their voting pattern due to losing faith in political parties viz Congress n BJP or the people who’d migrated out of the state during the last five years, having their votes , have not turned up for voting due to their having been preoccupied in jobs n other responsibilities.

In elections, it’s usually said that excessive polling always goes against the ruling party in power as people come to polls enmass to vote against the government due to anti incumbency.

But if the percentage is low or near to the previous election tally it’s usually considered to be the mandate in favor of the ruling party.

The assumption is : the committed vote bank does come to the poll and the voters of the losing parties avoid coming to the poll thinking that if they are already losing, why should they waste their time and money.

Keeping this analysis and assumption in mind it transparently looks that the saffron party with Modi effect has the upper say in this election in Uttarakhand. It can be either 4-1, 3- 2 or 5-0 with saffron party taking the ultimate lead. What’s your take friends?