Uttarakhand Elections: The odds of a new chief minister

In the 2007 polls, BJP came out as largest party with 35 seats, while the Congress won 21 seats

Amid tight security, the polling for the single-phase Uttarakhand assembly elections 2017 began on Wednesday and the one question in everyone’s mind is whether this Himalayan state, which was carved out from the gigantic Uttar Pradesh in 2000, is going to have a new chief minister or the incumbent supremacy will continue.

The rebel party leaders, certainly, hold the key in the outcome in the hilly state where two prominent parties – the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and the Congress — are trying every bit to seek the favour of every section of voters. Both parties expelled many leaders ahead of the elections, who then walked into the rival camps. While the BJP has fielded candidates, who have served the Congress, from 13 seats, the grand old party is trying its luck with seven erstwhile-BJP MLAs.

In the last leg of the election campaign, the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi asked to waive off loans worth crores which were taken by some 50 rich families, instead of an initiative against black money as Prime Minister Narendra Modi projected.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Modi, in his last rally in Pithoragarh, tried to strike an emotional chord where the majority of people are in the Army and other security forces. Starting from OROP and surgical strike, he went on to announce many schemes for the betterment of Army personnel.

Reports of the cold war between Uttarakhand Elections 2017 Chief Minister Harish Rawat and Pradesh Congress Committee chief Kishore Upadhyay emerged as the polls drew near. Besides fighting with the BJP, Harish Rawat is also combating for power within the state unit of his party.

The results of the polls will be out on March 11, 2017.

READ FULL ARTICLE :

Win at all costs? PM Modi's reforms meet realpolitik in Uttar Pradesh polls

Maurya, BJP UP President, said his party is moving towards cleaner and transparent politics

Elections 2017 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to clean up politics. The man running the ruling party's campaign in a crucial state election, who is facing 11 criminal cases, says it will take a while.

"At a time of elections, one has to forget every other aspect and just focus on victory," said Keshav Prasad Maurya, as his three-vehicle convoy carrying police with automatic rifles sped through the countryside.

Polls open on Saturday in Uttar Pradesh, with a population of some 220 million, and on the ground Modi's loftier aims for a new India seem far away.

Maurya, the state's president for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), says the charges against him are false and politically motivated; unless he is convicted, they do not prevent him from holding office.

His bosses are not concerned.

An official at the prime minister's office referred questions about Maurya and his criminal cases to the BJP, where an aide to party president and Modi confidant Amit Shah said there was no problem.

The charges are related to Maurya protesting on behalf of Hindu causes, said the aide, and anyone who does so "is not a criminal in the party's eyes."

"Slowly," Maurya told Reuters, "the BJP will be moving towards a direction where it will only have politicians who are absolutely clean and have no cases of corruption against them." (Read More)