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STATES: UTTARANCHAL

Ballot Gambit

The BJP effects a change of guard in an effort to win the state's first-ever assembly elections

By Sharad Gupta

After being sworn in on October 30, new Uttaranchal Chief Minister Bhagat Singh Koshiari walked down the dais. Then he seemed to remember something, turned back and climbed the steps again. He gathered his cabinet members and got them to hold hands and raise them. The applause of the crowd was long and loud.

The show of hands was a gesture meant more for the party than the public. New equations were being written-the somnolent Nityanand Swami, the state's first helmsman, was being replaced just four months before elections and demonstrating solidarity was a necessity. "With Bhagatji at the helm of affairs, we will win the polls hands down," jubilated a BJP worker.

Koshiari, thinly built, unruly hair atop a balding head and a reluctant smile, does not look like a crowdpuller. But the 59-year-old RSS pracharak is the man who spearheaded the decade-long agitation for a separate Uttaranchal state. He ran a weekly Hindi newspaper, Parvat Piyush, and some Saraswati Shishu Mandirs-RSS-backed schools-before entering full-time politics in 1988 as general secretary of the BJP's state unit.

Elevated to the post of state party president in 1997, Koshiari was a strong contender for the chief ministership when Uttaranchal was carved out of Uttar Pradesh on November 8 last year. His bid was backed by 18 out of 23 BJP legislators. Swami, however, outsmarted Koshiari by winning Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's support. Vajpayee, according to a state BJP leader, didn't know any other legislator from the state.

Swami, who spent a considerable part of his political career in the Congress, was never popular among the BJP cadre or his cabinet colleagues, who flooded party leaders with complaints against him. The BJP leadership began to take the complaints seriously when they grew louder and shriller. "I told party leaders that I wouldn't abide by a discipline that promotes the downslide of the party," says a former senior minister in Swami's cabinet.

No wonder the celebrations among the BJP workers were more for Swami's ouster than Koshiari's elevation from energy minister in the previous cabinet to the top post. Primarily, the state's caste equations guided the BJP in selecting Koshiari for the chief ministership-being a Rajput he represents the interests of the community which constitutes 60 per cent of Uttaranchal's population. Also, with both Assembly Speaker Prakash Pant and state party chief Puran Chandra Sharma being Brahmins, appointing another Brahmin as the chief minister would have hurt the BJP's chances in next year's polls.

Koshiari, meanwhile, has begun making the right political statements. "I will work in consultation with my cabinet colleagues. My emphasis will be on inculcating team spirit in my ministers," he told India Today. "I have run the state party unit for three years in this manner and hope to repeat the feat in government as well." On his first day in office, Koshiari dropped two cabinet ministers of the previous government-Matbar Singh Kandari and Bansidhar Bhagat-because of their dubious reputation. Harbans Kapoor, a senior MLA who has won eight times from Dehradun, was inducted into the new cabinet.

Despite the change of guard, the BJP's ride to an electoral triumph in Uttaranchal is likely to be difficult. It may have struck the right caste balance but the state's administration now reflects regional imbalance. The three top posts in the state-that of the chief minister, the Assembly Speaker and the party chief-are held by people from the Kumaon region. The three even belong to the same district, Pithoragarh.

Like Swami before him, Koshiari too has little administrative experience. His first shot at governance was his ministerial appointment under Swami last year. Koshiari hopes to overcome this handicap by seeking the help of seasoned colleagues like the state's Finance Minister Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank and Kedar Singh Phonia, both of whom have served as Uttar Pradesh ministers in the past. The duration and extent of the bonhomie in the Koshiari Cabinet will now decide the fate of both the chief minister and his party in the forthcoming polls.

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