After Congress’s dismal performance in five states, including Uttarakhand, chinks in the state Congress are wide open with poster boy Harish Rawat’s latest Facebook post seemingly blaming the party’s screening committee for making him contest from the Lalkaun assembly seat, which he lost.
Rawat said the screening committee had asked him to contest the 2022 Uttarakhand election when he was not willing to. He further said as the head of the Congress campaign committee he wanted to focus on the campaign but the party insisted he should contest the polls.
“Party (Congress) decided to field me from Ramnagar and moved a local candidate to another seat Salt. When I had prepared my mind, then I was asked to shift to Lalkuan,” Rawat wrote in a Facebook post.
His reaction comes after senior Congress leader Pritam Singh, who retained the Chakrata assembly seat in the 2022 assembly elections, taunted Rawat that it was not “fair” that he decided to contest from a seat where he was not active in the last five years. “Suddenly you decide to jump in. Do you want to reap benefit for someone else’s hard work?” commented Singh on Rawat.
A large section in the Congress believes despite receiving 38% vote share in the election, the party could not win most seats due to mismanagement, wrong distribution of tickets and lack of killer instinct.
The Congress lost four seats with a margin ranging between 500 to 1,800 votes, but it also won three seats within 119 to 1,200 votes. In Lalkuan, Rawat lost by a margin of 17,527 votes to BJP candidate Mohan Bisht who contested the assembly election for the first time.
What Led to Congress’ Loss?
According to experts, one issue that largely impacted the Congress was Rawat’s alleged promise of open a Muslim University in the state. Memes and morphed pictures of him with a long beard were circulated on social media.
Although during the election campaign, Rawat repeatedly clarified he had not made any such promise but it failed to help the Congress. Nonetheless, for the first time, Rawat wrote about the Muslim University in his social media post.
“This needs to be probed who was behind the little known leader who first made statement on the Muslim University. Who helped that leader to become the secretary and later the general secretary in the Congress,” Rawat wrote.
It is learnt that a local leader, Akil Ahmad from Dehradun district, spoke about the Muslim university.
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