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Nityanand Swami faces tough fight in Dehradun

Tara Shankar Sahay in Dehradun

While winning the Laxman Chowk assembly constituency in Dehradun district will be no cakewalk for former Uttaranchal chief minister Nityanand Swami, his task will be further complicated by the presence of Bharatiya Janata Party rebel Prem Batra in the fray.

Among the 22 aspirants for the seat, Swami's main opponent is Congress candidate Dinesh Agarwal.

Heavy rains in the last 24 hours have affected campaigning, which is yet to go into overdrive. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's address in the Uttaranchal capital on Thursday attracted less crowds than anticipated, bringing a cheer in Congress ranks while throwing a shadow over the BJP's earlier assertion of a comfortable victory.

"Swamiji lost touch with the people when he became chief minister and was out of bounds for them," Agarwal said.

"I have maintained my links with them and helped them whichever way I could," he said.

The only notable issue in the area is development on which independent candidate Batra and Agarwal hope to pin down the former chief minister.

"There has been no development in this constituency worth the name," Meenakshi Bisht, who runs a store near the former chief minister's well-guarded residence, said.

"The BJP cannot take our votes for granted if it cannot deliver the goods. I tell you, even diehard BJP supporters will think twice before casting their ballot in favour of Swamiji's party," she said.

"He is imperious and thinks he can have our votes for the asking, but that is not the case," she continued defiantly, making sure that Swami's supporters hanging around would hear her. "Prem Batraji's humility has struck a chord among the people. I, for one, will cast my vote for him."

Even though it had stripped Swami of the state's chief ministership, the BJP high command still gave him the Laxman Chowk ticket. But Batra did not lose heart and jumped into the fray as an independent, Bisht pointed out.

"If Uttaranchal's former chief minister has to use his enormous resources to win right in the heart of Dehradun, surely it is not a good sign for the BJP," contended three-wheeler driver Arvind Unniyal. "Yeh larai Swamiji ke liye asaan nahin hai (this contest is no cakewalk for Swami)," he asserted.

Unniyal pointed out that after taking over as chief minister, Swami had 'promised the skies' to the youth and talked about developmental activities in Dehradun, the new state's capital.

"Lekin unhone kucch nahin kiya, sirf ashwasan dete rahe (But he did nothing except dole out promises)."

Unniyal said he himself was an unemployed graduate who took to driving three-wheelers 'out of sheer desperation'.

Agarwal is banking upon the support that the Congress is expected to get after party chief Sonia Gandhi's impending visit to Dehradun.

"You just wait and watch, quite a few of the erstwhile BJP strongholds will spring surprise results," Uttaranchal Pradesh Congress Committee president Harish Rawat told rediff.com

Congress veteran Kamal Nath, party spokesman Anil Shastri, Rawat and other senior politicians met in the Madhuban Hotel on Friday to decide the details of Gandhi's visit on Sunday, February 10.

Swami's Man Friday, campaign manager Ashish Kumar Sharma, however, claims that the former chief minister is assured of 30 per cent of the 'committed BJP votes' in the constituency's 110,000 voters.

He said Swami had helped set up a degree college in Dehradun and disbursed financial support to many young people. To this, Agarwal retorted, "Whoever has benefited from Swami's so-called largesse are his own supporters."

In the adjoining Dehradun (Proper) constituency, the BJP similarly appears to be facing a Congress 'assault'. Congress candidate Sanjay Sharma, an advocate, has a direct fight with Urban Development Minister Harbans Kapoor, though independent Anil Nautiyal is also campaigning with gusto.

This segment has 82,000 voters where, barring the trader community, the rest want a change in the state government. "Aisa dhokha to humne sapnon mein bhi nahin sochha tha (we had not even dreamt of such a letdown)," said Jadoo Singh Patwal, manager of an auto repair workshop and petrol pump on Rajpur Road.

"Dehradun has no water or electricity board, no industrial policy and no employment avenues," he said. "And when the city youth recently marched to the state assembly to demand jobs they were lathi-charged."

He said the people were 'fed up' of the BJP government, which had brought down provident fund interest rates and closing whatever employment opportunities were available in the capital town.

A jeepload of Congress workers carrying placards with the legend Harbans nikamma vidhayak (Harbans, ineffectual MLA) speedily drove through in a heavy drizzle as people watched from the shelter of various shops on Rajpur Road.

The BJP candidate is being pilloried in the constituency because despite having been a minister in Uttar Pradesh earlier and now the new state, his appeal is limited to the constituency's shopkeepers.

The shopkeepers form the 'diehard' BJP vote bank and are openly abusing Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, accusing her of having a 'foreigner's outlook'.

"Woh Hindi Italian lihaaz se bolti hain, woh Hindustan mein raj kya karegi? (she speaks Hindi with an Italian accent, how can she rule India)?," remarked septuagenarian fruit-juice vendor Dumdum Singh.

But BJP activists in Dehradun are keeping a wary eye on Gandhi's impending visit, hoping she does not attract more people than Vajpayee did on Wednesday.

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