India

When I have sidelined myself then why so much of hullabaloo: Harish Rawat

The factionalism and intra party squabbles in Uttarakhand Congress between party’s national general secretary and former CM Harish Rawat and state president Pritam Singh and veteran Congress leader of the party in Assembly Indira Hridayesh after Rawat’s controvertial tweet on declaring the “General” of Congress in Uttarakhand before 2022 assembly elections, who could be projected as the prospective state CM while fighting BJP at the hustings leading to contradictory statements by his betenoires viz Pritam and Hridayesh, has further constrained former CM Rawat to come out with a detailed facebook post on Thursday in Hindi as below unambiguously indicating that the issue of 2017’s defeat of Congress in Uttarakhand is raised time and again by his detractors to put him on the defensive mode/ back foot. AICC general secretary who recently demanded Bharat Ratna for Congress president Sonia Gandhi and BSP Supremo Mayawati, terming them as iconic personalities who’d worked relentlessly throughout their lives for the upliftment of the downtrodden, women across spectrum and down troddens, backwards, dalits and underprivileged sections, Harish Rawat wrote the FB post after acknowledging bashing from his opponents within party in social media.

According to Harish Rawat’s facebook post, the issue of 2017′ election defeat comes to the fore, time and again to threaten me with fear. I have already owned the entire responsibility of the defeat of 2017 elections. I had taken the entire responsibility on my shoulders in order to avoid controversies pertaining to this defeat weakening the party organisation. I have not become a scapegoat though I could have given so many excuses for this defeat. But, we should understand a hard reality that we shouldn’t keep this defeat syndrome alive. Instead should bypass them and tighten our belts by keeping the contemporary reasons of the defeat in front of us and overcome them. In Uttar Pradesh we had a grand alliance, but all the social and caste equations failed there and the slogans of Shamshan ghat and Kabristaan changed the minds of electorates.

The way BJP’s star campaigner Yogi Adityanath had polarised the votes of Hindus and forward castes in UP, its impact in the majority community state made the saffron party victorious. I am grateful to the electorates of Uttarakhand that despite so much of efforts of polarisation of BJP the Congress vote percentage remained intact in Uttarakhand. it rather enhanced by 1 lakh 75 thousands as compared to 2012. Our Congress workers had worked hard tremendously, that despite the former Congress’s president’s leaving the party they have maintained the number of total votes of Congress, that have been attained in 2012 when the party gained power in Uttarakhand.

Even on 12 assembly seats our margin of defeat was very narrow. In order to win the 2022, we have to increase merely 4 to 5% vote and these are the votes of BSP and UKD which had been shifted to BJP in 2017. In order to retransfer these votes to Congress I have suggested to Congress high command to declare the face of the prospective CM of Uttarakhand from Congress’s side so that we can strongly, effectively and decisively counter the BJP on regional leadership face and local issues as they would be highlighting PM.Modi as their trump card. This was just an advice. In democracy discussions do take place.

I have sidelined myself in order to clear the misconception that Harish Rawat is trying to project himself. I fail to understand that when I have side lined myself from the race then what for is the desperate exercise on ( criticizing me using the word ” Danaadan”. He meant what for is the hullabaloo against me, when I have already committed to stand aloof from the joint leadership formula fighting the elections of 2022 said Harish Rawat in his FB post.

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Sunil Negi

Sunil Negi is a senior journalist and president of Uttarakhand Journalists Forum ( Regd). He usually writes on socio political subjects and have been contributing articles in print media for the last several years. Mr. Sunil Negi had been felicitated by All India Achievers conference's Pride of India and excellence awards apart from several other recognitions. He has translated a book on ecological disaster of Uttarakhand of June 2013 and edited and published two editions of Uttaranchal's Who's Who.

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