Uttarakhand: Pushkar Singh Dhami got booted out, yet plans to bring in UCC?

Image Courtesy:hindustantimes.com

Uttarakhand’s now ex-chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami achieved a rare feat when he lost to the Congress’s Bhuwan Chandra Kapri from Khatima constituency, even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a record second consecutive term in the state winning 48 of the 70 assembly seats. 

Pushkar Singh Dhami was booted out by Kapri by a margin of 6,951 votes from Khatima constituency which had been considered ‘safe’ for the ex-CM who got 40,675 votes while Kapri got 47,626 votes. Dhami was the frontrunner for the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate, as he had been handpicked and sworn in as the 10th Chief Minister of Uttarakhand on July 3, 2021, after Tirath Singh Rawat was made to resign from the post. Rawat himself was Chief Minister of Uttarakhand only from March 2021 till July 2, 2021.

It was under Dhami’s nose that the Hindutva hate conclave, a.k.a the Dharam Sansad was held in Haridwar between December 17 and 19, 2021, where hate speech after hate speech was made by religious leaders, right-wing activists, hardline fundamentalist speakers and several calls were made for a Muslim genocide. According to news reports, Dhami is likely to remain the Chief Minister, even after his defeat. He is also close to many Hindutva leaders.

In the run up to elections, Dhami told the media that if re-elected the BJP government will form a panel to prepare a draft of the Uniform Civil Code saying, “Soon after its swearing-in, the new BJP government will form a committee to prepare a draft of Uniform Civil Code in the state. This Uniform Civil Code will provide for the same laws regarding marriages, divorce, land-property and inheritance for all people, irrespective of their faith.” 

Now that the BJP has won, Dhami who lost, has reportedly vowed to constitute a high-level committee in a bid to implement the Uniform Civil Code. He said, “We will form a high-level committee after forming the government to implement the Uniform Civil Code. The committee will prepare a draft and we will implement it in Uttarakhand as we’ve promised to the people of the state.”

Khatima has 119,980 voters and according to caste equations, Khatima has 25% Thakur voters, 5.17% Brahmin, 24% scheduled tribe, 18% scheduled caste, 6.5% Sikh and Punjabi, 4% Bengali, and 7.5% Muslim voters stated news reports, Dhami is a Thakur, in a state that also has regional and sub classifications such as Pahari, Punjabi, Tharu, SC, Purabiya, and Bengali. 

In the past four assembly elections, the Congress has won the Khatima seat twice in the first two polls, and Dhami has won in the last two elections. The last time in 2017, he had defeated the Congress candidate, Bhuwan Kapri, by 2,709 votes. 

According to news reports, Dhami who was CM for seven months “failed to connect with the general public in his area” and failed to resolve the peoples demands such as “employment, setting up higher educational institutions,” reported HT. It is also important to note that he failed to connect with the Punjabi and Sikh farmers, who had also been a part of the nationwide protest of farmers who denounced the now repealed farm laws and demanded Minimum Support Price (MSP) for their crops.

On Friday, Dhami submitted his resignation to the governor Lieutenant General (R) Gurmit Singh at Raj Bhavan. He will continue as the caretaker CM till the new government is sworn in. 

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