The Pauri Garhwal Lok Sabha constituency of Uttarakhand has become the battleground for a keenly contested election with a multitude of poll issues surfacing in the hill state.

While the Centre’s Agniveer Scheme has occupied the center stage with its Gujarat connect, the killing of 19-year-old Ankita Bhandari, Joshimath hill town subsidence, and Ram Temple in Ayodhya are the key issues for the voters.

Here, Congress candidate Ganesh Godiyal is missing no opportunity to convince the people that “had the Indian Army been Gujarati peoples’ interest for employment, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would never have brought in Agniveer Scheme.”

Godiyal mentioned the Gujarat connection at every election meeting he addressed it with the message that Modi and Shah make decisions only with a focus on Gujarat. The Congress candidate had been reaching out to the voters with the message that Agniveer would render a large section of Pauri youths jobless.

It’s significant to note that the armed forces are a major source of employment for Uttarakhand youths with the largest number of recruits coming from Pauri.

The Congress candidate has also been raising the death of Ankita Bhandari allegedly by Pulkit Arya, son of a BJP leader and a resort owner, and his two associates, as a major poll issue. He carried out a door-to-door campaign in the constituency demanding that the BJP should reveal the name of the VIP for whom the accused men wanted Ankita to provide ‘extra services’ the day she went missing in 2022.

It’s the Ankita killing that led Ashutosh Negi, an activist, to contest the elections as an independent candidate from Pauri. He single-handedly led a campaign for a CBI probe into the murder case. Following this, he was arrested by the Uttarakhand Police and jailed under SC ST Act.

The Ankita issue has made inroads into the vote bank of the ruling party to the extent that a sizeable section of Pauri’s population is likely to vote keeping this issue in mind.

Apart from this, migration from the hills, unemployment and disaster management are being raised prominently by Ganesh Godiyal.

While Godiyal had been on the offensive on the Ankita Bhandari issue, BJP national media in charge and party candidate Anil Baluni is confident of emerging as the ultimate winner with the “Modi Magic” on his side and works done by the Pushkar Singh Dhami Government in Uttarakhand.

Baluni, a first-timer, countered the Ankita issue saying, “We all were shocked over Ankita’s death. She was our daughter. Now, the matter is in the court and is being probed. The law is taking its course and the deceased will get justice.”

Baluni also sought votes for the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya after 500 years and the Vibrant Village Scheme of the Centers that aims to reverse migration or return the migrated population to the hills.

Another key issue here is Joshimath land subsidence which took prominence a year ago. The town located on the banks of river Alaknanda, the gateway to the Badrinath shrine, is still bearing the brunt of the catastrophe leaving thousands homeless.

Nearly 500 dwellings in the town were rendered unfit to live and all the families there were shifted to other locations by the local administration.

Since the affected people have not been given alternate accommodation by the state government, they are forced to boycott the polls. The people of the Joshimath are also angry that Baluni and other party leaders didn’t visit them during the disaster.

Pauri is a focus area for the BJP’s Central leadership. Baluni is considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. The constituency witnessed almost all the big faces of the BJP, including Modi, Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Smriti Irani, and a battery of other leaders, seeking votes for him.

The main battle in the Pauri Garhwal Lok Sabha seat is between the Congress and the BJP even though BSP’s Bhim Singh Bisht and an independent, Ashutosh Singh Negi, are other prominent candidates in the fray. The BJP has been winning the seat for the last two consecutive parliamentary elections, in 2014 and 2019.

Sitting MP and former CM Tirath Singh Rawat won in 2019 with 68.25 per cent votes defeating Congress candidate and former CM BC Khanduri’s son Manish Khanduri by more than three lakh votes. Manish Khanduri recently joined the BJP.

In 2014, BJP’s BC Khanduri defeated Congress candidate Harak Singh Rawat by 1.85 lakh votes. Khanduri polled 59.48 per cent of votes and Rawat 32.43 per cent. Prior to that, the Congress nominee, now a BJP cabinet minister in the state, Satpal Maharaj, won Pauri Garhwal by nearly 17,000 votes against BJP’s Tej Pal Singh Rawat with 40.88 per cent votes while Satpal Maharaj polled 44.12 per cent.

Polling in all five Lok Sabha seats of Uttarakhand will be held on Friday in the first phase of voting. Contest in four other constituencies, Tehri Garhwal, Haridwar, Nainital-Udhamsingh Nagar, and Almora are directly between Congress and the BJP candidates.