BJP scripts history in Uttarakhand with back-to-back victories

NEW DELHI: The BJP has scripted history in Uttarakhand. For the first time, a ruling party in the state has won back to back elections, and that too convincingly.

In the last four elections in the state, the BJP had won twice in 2002 and 2012, while the BJP had won in 2007 and 2017.

In 2022, the saffron party has not just repeated victory, but has also once again crossed the three-fourth majority mark in the state assembly.

In 2017, the BJP had won 56 seats in Uttarakhand with a vote share of 46.51%. The Congress with a vote share of 33.49% was a distant second with only 11 seats.

Five years down the line, the BJP has managed to maintain that dominance despite all the odds.

The party has bagged over 44% of the votes once again. That explains why the Congress has not managed to gain enough seats despite increasing its vote share to over 38%.


But while the BJP has performed well, the party’s chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has lost the election.

Dhami was the third BJP chief minister in the last 5 years hinting at the possibility that all was not well in the saffron camp in the state.

However, today’s results show that the BJP acted well in time to ensure that it did not lose the advantage it had gained in 2017.

The Congress on the other hand will need to do some serious rethinking to recover the ground it has lost in two subsequent elections.

Harish Rawat, who led the Congress campaign, had predicted that Congress would touch the 50-seat mark. So confident he was of win that he even organized a victory bash.

Ironically, Harish Rawat could not even win his seat.

The former Congress chief minister expressed surprise at the results.

"For me, the results are very surprising. I cannot understand that after such massive inflation, if this was the public's mandate, what is the definition of public welfare & social justice? ... I can't understand people saying 'BJP zindabaad' after this," Rawat said.

He conceded defeat and said "our campaign strategy was insufficient. People worked very well & I'd like to thank them. I couldn't win people's trust but I'd like to congratulate my daughter and all the winning candidates who won."

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