Uttarakhand: BJP treks, Cong slides

New Delhi: It’s being seen as a result that could be of considerable consequence to the forthcoming UP Assembly elections.

The BJP on Tuesday capitalised on the rising anti-incumbency in the hill state of Uttarakhand, sending Congress downhill and emerging as the party most likely to form the next government in the state.

Uprooting the Congress from its traditional footholds, BJP used the issues of price rise, corruption and unemployment to its benefit.

Though the party is still tanatalisingly short of one seat - with its tally at 34 seats - sound of celebrations could be heard across BJP party headquarters in Dehradun.

The pending result was Narendra Nagar constituency, where a recount was sought by the BJP candidate Lakhi Ram Joshi after Congress' aspirant Subodh Uniyal sprinted to victory by a single-digit margin of seven votes over his UKD rival, Om Gopal Rawat.

“The entire parivar worked together. People of RSS and Parivar were very active and I must acknowledge that,” said BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad.

One of frontrunners for the BJP chief minister's job is BC Khanduri. Though RSS leader Bhagat Singh Koshiary was seen losing out to the greater administrative ability of the former army man Khanduri, it was Koshiary that BJP leader Rajnath Singh decided to call to Delhi on Wednesday.

Even as Congress conceded defeat with stalwarts like state Congress Chief Harish Rawat admitting they erred in their strategy, the outgoing chief minister N D Tiwari also resigned in the late hours of Tuesday.

Accepting defeat, Tiwari said he respected the people's mandate.

However, the Congress also salvaged some respectability by winning the bypoll to the Tehri-Garhwal parliamentary constituency by a huge margin.

Its candidate Vijay Bahuguna achieved success on his third try, wresting the seat from the BJP's Manujendra Shah, the son of incumbent MP Manavendra Shah -- whose death on January 5 this year necessitated the bypoll -- by a margin of over 19,000 votes.

Bahaguna, the son of redoubtable hill leader and former UP Chief Minister, the late Hemwati Bahuguna, outclassed Mr Shah, whose late father, the erstwhile Maharaja of Tehri-Garhwal, had won elections to the seat a record eight times.

Importantly, the Bahujan Samaj Party also performed better that expected but the Samajwadi Party and Uma Bharti's BJS failed to shine.