Sailing on the Modi wave, BJP scored the biggest ever Assembly election win in Uttarakhand. The experiment of the Congress to fight election on the face of Chief Minister Harish Rawat, whose image had taken a nosedive after the tv news sting operations, flopped badly. BJP won 56 seat – the biggest ever haul by any party ever in the history of Uttarakhand. Congress managed to secure 11 seats and independents two seats in the 70 member state Assembly. 

Proving a major blow to Congress, Harish Rawat lost from both the Haridwar rural and Kiccha Assembly seats. Even State Congress president Kishore Upadhyay failed to win from Sehaspur. Uttarakhand BJP chief Ajay Bhatt was the prominent loser for BJP. Even the experiment of involving PK for election campaign by Congress for Uttarakhand polls failed miserably. 

Most of the Rawat cabinet minister-including forest minister Dinesh Aggarwal, education minister Mantri Prasad Naithani, health minister Surinder Negi- lost. The Congress headquarters in Dehradun wore a deserted look while the BJP office became hub of all the action. BJP supporters began cracking crackers and distributing sweets as the party took an unprecedented lead.  

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat met Uttarakhand Governor K.K Paul in Dehradun on Saturday and submitted his resignation. Accepting the resignation, Uttarakhand Governor has asked Rawat to work as acting Chief Minister till the formation of the new government. 

Taking a stand alike BSP chief Mayawati, Harish Rawat made a satirical comment, “I also want to congratulate ’Modi Kranti’ (revolution) and EVM ‘Chamatkar‘.”  

The poll results shocked Rawat as even till Saturday morning he was repeating his claim of Congress forming government on its own in Uttarakhand by winning 45 seats. 

Rawat should take a major chunk of the blame for the Congress debacle, as his self centered style of functioning force senior party leaders to abandon the grand old party. The politics of Rawat hit Congress hard, as the party ran out of faces in the Uttarakhand polls. BJP took full advantage of the Congress infighting and provided many turncoats the party symbol.

Even this experiment paid and out of a 10 turncoats, eight were successful in winning from their seats. Congress rebels including Kedar Rawat, Subodh Uniyal, Umesh Sharma Kau, Kunwar Pranab Champion, Harak Singh Rawat, Rekha Arya, Yashpal Arya and Satpal Maharaj won to provide further strength to the saffron party in Uttarakhand. Ex-Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna’s son Saurav Bahuguna and Yashpal Arya’s son Sanjeev Arya registered win from their seats. Both the leaders left Congress due to their differences with Harish Rawat and his corrupt functioning. 

The Modi magic worked in the hills by attracting every section of people. The most surprising of all was the shift of Dalit vote bank in BJP‘s favour. Which helped the saffron party register win in many seats- where they were not expecting win.