New Delhi:As calls for leadership and organizational reforms in India’s grand old party, the Indian National Congress, gained currency in the aftermath of the party’s poor performance in the recently concluded assembly elections in five states, they is a silver lining for the party in the hill state of Uttarakhand.
The Congress party which was hoping for a come-back in Uttarakhand turned out to be a distant second in the seventy member assembly with just 19 seats against the arch-rival Bharatiya Janata Party’s 47 seats, which is more than a two-third majority in Uttarakhand’s new Vidhan Sabha.
In the assembly election results declared on Thursday evening, the ruling BJP won 47 seats, the Congress won 19 seats while Uttar Pradesh’s former chief minister Mayawati’s party Bahujan Samaj Party won two seats and the remaining two seats were bagged by independent candidates. The result shows that the Congress seat count is less than 30% in the new assembly, 19 seats in the 70 member house, which is just 27% of the total seats.
As per the seat count, it is clear that the grand old party led by the Nehru-Gandhi family was not able to put a fight to BJP’s formidable election machinery under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his trusted aides - Union home minister Amit Shah and the party president Jagat Prakash Nadda.
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Vote share tells a different story
However, a look at the actual number of votes polled by both the BJP and Congress would tell a completely different story. While the BJP bagged 44.3 per cent votes, 23,83,838 votes precisely, the Congress was not a distant second in terms of the actual number of votes secured by the party as it was able to bag 37.9% votes (20,83,509 votes).
The difference between the actual number of votes polled by the BJP and the Congress is just 3 lakh votes (300,329 votes), a difference of just 6.4% votes which caused the huge difference in the number of seats won by the two parties.
But the BJP was able to win 2.5 times more seats in comparison with the Congress just because of the difference of 6.4% in their respective vote share, 47 seats against the 19 seats won by the Congress.
Whether AAP spoiled Congress’ game plan?
It appears that the entry of the Aam Aadmi Party led by Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal spoiled the party for Congress. Though the AAP has not been able to open its account in Uttarakhand as its chief ministerial candidate Col
Ajay Kothiyal (retd) failed to win his own seat. However, the AAP was able to bag 1,78,134 votes, which is 3.31% of the total votes polled in the state. Mayawati’s party BSP won two seats in the state with 2,59,371 votes (4.82%) of the total votes polled in the state while 46,840 voters opted for the NOTA (none of the above) option.
It is clear that the Congress’ decision to go solo in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand went against the party as an alliance with either the BSP or the Aam Aadmi Party would have changed the electoral arithmetic in Uttarakhand.
