Providing a New Year bonanza, the Trivendra Rawat led Uttarakhand government decided to provide red beacon posts to 14 party workers. After registering a landslide victory in the 2017 state assembly elections, the BJP has kept the party workers waiting for long. Every time the Chief Minister toured the national capital the murmur about providing ‘Lal Battis’ used to start in the hill state.
The BJP workers had to work for over one year and nine months to get the red beacons. During the Congress rule, ND Tiwari distributed ‘Lal Battis’ like peanuts to make it a political issue. After the Tiwari experiment, not many Chief Ministers were comfortable in issuing red beacons to party workers.
The Trivendra Rawat government announced providing red beacons to 14 party workers: Mohan Prasad Thapliyal, Naresh Bansal, Kedar Joshi, Gajraj Bisht, Samim Alam, Gyan Singh Negi, Samsheer Singh, Vinod Arya, Vijay Barthwal, Mahaveer Rangad, RK Jain, Deepti Rawat Bhardwaj, Ghananand ‘Ghana,’ and Rajesh Kumar are among the party workers to feature in the list.
Many hopefuls were expected to figure in the list but it has shattered the hopes of many BJP members. The state government is likely to announce the second list soon.
Tiwari provided about 350 Lal Battis to make it an election issue in Uttarakhand. After voted back to power in 2012, the earlier Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna had provided ministerial ranks to 95 leaders. Bahuguna’s move was considered a compulsion for his collation government. After Harish Rawat became the CM he too adopted a cautious approaching in distributing ‘Lal Battis.’
BJP scored a big win in the 2017 Uttarakhand assembly elections by winning 56 seats in the 70 member state assembly and the BJP was under no unnecessary pressure from party workers. In the first list, many areas were ignored and it is estimated that the new list will be declared soon.