 a warm welcome to NewsClick. I'm your host Neelu Vyas and on this platform you find me with a brand new show called Point of View which brings you discussions, debates, interviews from the polebound states and we also delve deep into the polebound states as to what is really happening over there, what are the issues which are really resonating amongst the people. Today we are going to talk about battle Uttarakhand. It's a high-voltage battle for 70 seats. Traditionally it's a bipolar contest between BJP and the Congress but this time in the year 2022 you have a debitant party that is the Armadhani party and so far the perception has been that Armadhani party is trying to gain grounds in this hill state but which way the mood will swing we do not know as of now. So let's begin this today's discussion. I have two veterans from Uttarakhand and let me introduce you to them. I have a congress spokesperson Sujata Paul who's joining us today. Sujata welcome on NewsClick. We also have Anup Nautiyal who's a veteran from Uttarakhand. He's a founder of the Social Development for Communities Foundation and a well-known base of Uttarakhand. Welcome you on the program Anup. Thank you. I'd like to begin with Sujata. Sujata how are the odds really stacked up for the 2022 elections this time as far as Congress is concerned? It's a win-win situation for the Congress party because you know there are times when you have a negative vote and there are times when you have a positive vote but here it is the people who've decided that the Congress party has always delivered. There might have been shortcomings but the Congress party has never strangulated people, has never brought the state to a stage where people have to come to the streets and nobody's there to listen to them and the most important factor is three chief ministers who were changed the Devasthanam Board Act which was repealed and 204 employees of the Senic Kalyan Board which is an act of parliament are on Dharna. Why? Because they're not being given the seventh pay commission. The government after being pressurized decided to pass this in the cabinet and yet did not implement it. So the ex-servicemen who are connected to all these people are antagonized by the government and are completely against the government. As far as the youth are concerned they are all over the place. The government what it did was it removed the Dharna Stal from the center of Deradun and took it to a place called Ekta Vihar which was away from the main city. That means they did not want to hear the voices of dissent, the voices of protest which is quite unnerving for us and very concerning if you look at the entire scenario. So unemployment, migration are issues and there are many other issues which I'm going to talk about if you permit me. If you look at the UK SSC which is the Adina Seva exams are conducted by them and you have an organization called NSEIT which conducts these exams but this very organization has been blacklisted in BJP rule states like Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. But in our state there is rampant cheating and then there will be a protest and then there will be an SIT maybe but nothing really comes out of it and you know at the end when the results come out you find that there are a huge you know huge number of people from the same family or people who are you know the role numbers are very close to each other, they've been selected. So there are a lot of irregularities this government has committed and I must also add over here that people are watching them. The model code of conduct violations have been brazen. The education department had a whole lot of transfers and appointments made which had to be cancelled after there was a UN cry raised by the Congress party. In addition to that there is a violation of point number 22.6 of the MCC manual whereby you cannot open any tender but the government is doing exactly that and this is a tender for rupees 40 crore for purchase of drones and I'm hoping that the you know election commission is going to take cognizance of that also. So people are watching them and they know that these are chief ministers who have been accused of rampant corruption. For example, the first one was removed because he had a case against him. The second one after the comb scam had to be removed and the third one actually said that he would allow, he had never stopped rather. He is from stealing, his words were, I have never stopped thieves from stealing during the election campaign of 2017 and people are recognizing this and they are all against them. So you're clearly saying that the mood of Uttarakhandi is not in favour of the BJP but Anup, if I come to you, do you really see the battle of 2022 in any way very different from what we have seen in the earlier years or you would just see it as a very traditional election with some alternating patterns. You would see BJP for five years then you would see Congress for five years or do you really see this election as something which is going to be very different this time? So having said that, thank you so much for having me on the show and so just wanted to sort of set some context and perspective you know to this 30-minute 40-minute sort of chat conversation that we are having and for the benefit of your viewers where are we coming from? So this is the fifth election in Uttarakhand, we were as a state we were formed in the year 2000 so just to sort of go back a little bit and every election we have a change in the political party which rules the state. So we had the Congress in 2002 then we had the BJP then we had the Congress we had the BJP again and somewhere or the other the common person on the street of course Sujata has her own point of view belonging to a party but if you talk about the average Uttarakhand out there on the road the perception is, this is something very very normal governments will come governments will go. The second thing is that there is also a perception of course in today's age and world perceptions matter a lot narratives matter a lot and one way or the other one perception here in Uttarakhand is that parties are also in some way or the other they are hand and glove with each other so this is a general sort of you know mindset. Now so Neelu your question was relating specifically to this 2022 election what do I have to say you know so the way I look at this battle the battle of 14 February results will be out on the 10th of March, I essentially see this as once again a bipolar contest and before I come to the the BJP and the Congress battle and we leave the Ahmad Party aside I just want to share two significant trends with your viewers in the past four elections and I think that these are very very important from the point of view of setting the context and the first and the important thing to note is that the vote share for the national parties in Uttarakhand has in each election gone up it has you know it has gone up and there has been a significant increase in fact even in the so-called route of the Congress in the last election in 2017 the Congress Party secured a 33% vote share the BJP and the Congress got 80% vote share in the 2017 election something very very significant as far as the as the mind space and the vote of the Uttarakhand voters goes that is number one number two Neelu again when we look back at the four elections if I can just interrupt you for few seconds so if you're saying that the vote share for the national parties has drastically increased over the years so it doesn't mean that those smaller fringe groups the fringe political outfits which actually leaped into the electoral fray or is there no space now for that? Also to add you know to build to that first point that I shared the second one is again you know I'm going to share some sort of top line numbers with you 2002 and 2007 election the BJP and the Congress together got 55 seats in the 2012 election this 55 went up to 63 we're talking together and then in 2017 the combined tally went up to 68 so we have 55-55 we have 63 we have 68 now naturally you know when the two major parties are going up like this they're eating into somebody's vote share and you know in the earlier years you know we had the BSP we had the Samajwadi party we had independence we had we had regional outfits and for instance to give you again a specific example of the BSP whose vote share has reduced from 12-13% in 2012 or rather 2007 to about 60% and this is where the Aam Aadmi party comes in Haridwar and Udham Senagar which have 20 out of our 70 assembly constituencies this is the vote vote bank perhaps which Aam Aadmi party will be vying or looking at you know here Haridwar but to summarize you know my sort of answer to your question but essentially speaking this is by and large an issue less election for Uttarakhand that is the way that I see it and of course you know Sujata will have her own counterpoint of view but this independent voice there is no big scam there is no big corruption there is no big narrative right but Sujata just taking a cue from where Anup was speaking on that it's an issue less election and it's actually a faceless election also if BJP comes to power we do not know at the moment that who's going to be their Chief Minister even though you have a person a veteran called Harish Rawat who is in the political fray he's leading the party from the front but we do not know whether he is going to become the Chief Minister there's no surety on that so what is the reason you see an issue less a faceless election which rides on very overarching issues and nobody knows what those issues really are so you know I don't really agree to that and I have reasons for that but before coming to that I do want to you know point out something that Anup mentioned about the 6% board share this is this is something which has come out from the Ahmadini party camp I've you know I've been told that they are only targeting a 6% board share in this particular election and there is a second point which which is something that is a matter of concern also maybe Anup would know more about it the youth foundation which is headed by Colonel Kothyal also has some kind of role of Sharia Doval in it so that is the reason why the Amadini party was probably pitted against the congress party not against the BJP and why am I saying that because it is the B team of the Bhartiya Janta party if you consider all these facts but in the hill region of course when you talk to the Pandapurohits what they say is that we cannot allow these guys to come in because in Delhi they they didn't do anything for Dilber Negi when he was murdered and there there are other things that they have in mind but coming to issue less and faceless I think as far as the Bhartiya Janta party is concerned they have understood that the popularity of Mr. Modi has gone down drastically people have also realized that voting in the name of Mr. Modi is not going to get the MLAs to work and that is why MLAs are constantly facing a lot of protests and MLAs are fighting amongst themselves former Chief Minister Mr. Trivinder Singh Rawat actually called Mr. Harak Singh Rawat who was a cabinet minister in his government you know there were fights between MLA Umesh Sharma Kao and in front of Dhan Singh Rawat with another office holder of the BJP then there were fights among a lot of these BJP leaders in Roorkee in Haridwar when Mr. JP Nadda came what we saw that he had to leave his rally in between the reason being there are three factions over there. Janta if I could just interrupt you we might not have seen these kind of open fights in Congress the similar kind of fights which you are just naming but similar allegations have been made about Congress your party is rampant with factionalism then you have people like Kishore Rapadhya being shown the door they are not on any posts right now and there's a lot of internal bickering which is happening within the Congress party so how do you stem that? You know it's quite amusing that on the one hand you have fascist forces who want to strangulate your voices but on the other side is the Congress party where you have the freedom to express yourself and this is nothing new this has been happening it has always happened and so you can't really accuse us of bickering if there is something which is happening it is it is democratic people voice their opinions they might fight with each other but when it comes to the Congress party they stand united and why do I say that because if you look at the Congress party in the entire country forget Uttarakhand there has always been that steady vote share which always votes for the Congress party look at what has happened in Uttar Pradesh the situation that we've come to but still that particular percentage will always vote for the Congress party so I think those people do understand that you might have your own opinions but when it comes to the party the party is more important than you so you can't really you know accuse the Congress party of factionalism of course there are leaders who have supporters and they want to project themselves or want to get projected that's perfectly fine with us because unless and until you have aspirations you won't won't be working you know you won't be doing your job as well and if you look at the Bhartiya Chanta party you don't know who will be the Chief Minister that means what that whoever is going to be forced upon the people will have to be behaving as the Chief Minister but will not be working as the Chief Minister so what's the point of such Chief Minister that's what the people are saying so when you talk about Uttarakhand and the three Chief Ministers you know we really need to understand they sometimes they say that we are going to go on the work of all the three Chief Ministers so if they were wrong the first two and they were removed why were they removed if they were doing the right thing I must tell you that people have been protesting you know on the streets of the capital ever since the BJP came into power 2018 onwards we have seen this there were one you know and Anup will know this even better there were 717 people who were thrown out of 108 services because the process of you know giving the tender to a company was brought in whereas earlier it was a different system so all these people are totally against the government of the day and the BJP they understand that the BJP only talks about pseudo nationalism they are not really nationalistic the BJP understands that they use the religious plank only to propel themselves amongst the people and that's not really going to help us with the actual issues of the people and people of Uttarakhand are pretty educated they're not into freebies but they what they want are jobs so when it comes to a face it is important that every constituent has a leader who is doing work for his people so people recognize him vote for him and then after that they select their leader in the house that is how it should have been you talk about joblessness joblessness remained an issue in 2017 it remained an issue in 2012 it still continues to exist in 2022 if I may get the neutral voice of Anup how would you really see are the people really contented I mean that's that's that wouldn't be the phrase to ask actually but the thing is that what is the mood of the people of Uttarakhand are they really in favor of changing BJP and voting for Congress how do you really see things unfolding on the ground you know what we were saying earlier by 2017 we know it was it was a cakewalk for the BJP you know they got some 45 46 percent vote share 57 odd seats right so one thing which is super clear for the 2022 battle and of course you know we don't know what lies ahead in the next 25 because a lot can happen in politics you know even yeah we all know that but as it looks today it's a seesaw battle it's a very very close battle that is the first point that I wish to make the second point Neelu is that so your question is that but the way I sort of look at the entire situation the feeling that I get is that political parties are more concerned in speaking to each other rather than speaking to people I'm just making a generic statement that's a significant observation yes right so that that's the second thing that I wish to say the third thing is how this battle will likely play out and you know I just want to sort of equate that or draw the analogy of a 2020 over game whether BJP will come with five things and I call them I you know it's my own acronym I call it the 5M now you will wonder so the first one for the BJP is manpower the second thing for the BJP going for the BJP is money power BJP the third thing going well for the BJP is its muscle power because it's the party in the center and it's the party as well as in the state the fourth thing for the BJP you whether you like it or you don't like it the fact of the matter remains that the management power of the BJP is very very strong so we've spoken about four and so far manpower money power muscle power management power and you and Sujata can guess the fifth M it's a pretty straightforward Modi power so these are the five M's for the BJP and then pitted against the five M's in Uttarakhand are the five C's of the Congress now they don't you know really relate to everything with C but the first thing is but again to translate it in a very simple manner our estimated population today is registered it means that every 10th Uttarakhandi is registered on the employment exchange the third one is this entire issue of development or where then you have subsets you know you have subsets of migration and maybe you know I would like to really request you as we were speaking on the phone yesterday maybe we can do another show altogether just talking about this entire emotive issue of migration you know Palayam to Palayam and Shiksha, these are the basics the fourth thing is what I have noticed in the last one odd month that the Congress has been much more aggressive now speaking about the corruption or the alleged corruption you know because I am no one to say whether there is corruption or no corruption or the alleged corruption of the BJP and they are particularly targeting the Chief Minister on allegations of Khanan which is you know what you call and the fifth thing Neelu as an independent voice I want to mention as far as the Congress is concerned that the Congress it appears to me in 2022 is fighting a far more resurgent battle compared to the way they organized themselves in 2017 so the five m's of the the BJP the five sort of elements for for the Congress this is how this battle is going to pan out and in terms of communication I want to wrap up my answer here as far as the BJP is concerned they are going to say that we have you know he is really focusing on I have taken 600 decisions I have taken 800 decisions uh you know so that's the BJP pitch as far as the Congress is concerned and then you know I don't want because then again I'll take time so these are the issues which are on the surface but then there are more deeper engraver issues I don't think we really have the time today all I want to add Neelu here and then I'll you know keep shut you know so there's something called a sticky message you know in the business of communication any message sticking I don't think that there is any message which is sticking so far either from the BJP camp or the Congress camp and you know this is the power of communication and in fact in today's Asian world you know social media driven and everything songs play a big part you know so that what led to the downfall of Narayan da Tiwari in the 2007 election was a song by the legendary Narinder Singh Neghi so maybe you know some song will come up but so far there is no one single message which appears to be sticking emotionally with 82 lakh voters of Uttarakhand that's a major point you've made that there's no sticky message but Sujatha if you've seen the opinion polls which have come recently they all have given BJP seats you know anything ranging from 31 to 38 and similarly for the Congress it's between 30 and 37 so which means that the fight is neck and neck almost so are you really confident or I found I asked is Congress really confident about winning and coming back to power to form the government how confident is the party oh the Congress party is coming back to power and I'll tell you why in 2016-17 according to the CMI the unemployment data says that there was 1.61% unemployment 2020 to 2021 CMI data says 10.99% and the youth is what the Modi government always has always been targeting but the youth is disillusioned today now coming to why do I think that this all these opinion polls are way off the mark is because there is 80 crore rupees which has gone into projecting the work that you know the so-called work that Pushkar Singh Dhami has done and what is this 80 crore the money spent on advertisements I have you know just received a message regarding another scam and this is you know there is an advertisement which was given for a particular magazine of a comparatively unknown magazine called Khabar Manak and on 13 January 2022 the bill was passed and this bill was Anup you must listen to this 71,99,992 so I'm going to go after them regarding this also can you imagine for an advertisement in a in a publication of Delhi which we haven't even heard of so this is how they are playing the entire thing if you look at the opinion polls there's one thing very interesting you will always see Anil Baluni making an entry into it Anil Baluni is not really there on the ground if you talk to people where is that name coming from that means these opinion polls are probably being managed also by him otherwise how does he make an entry into it is a question I would like to ask now when you talk about the things that this government has said they spent a whole lot of money on this investor summit in October in October of 2018 where they said that we were going to get an investment of 1.25 lakh crore rupees until day there has been no investment which has come in and so the government doesn't have anything to show us now the problem is that there are youngsters who are you know they go through this examination process they are selected and then they don't get an appointment and I'll tell you why the the the chief minister says I will give 24,000 jobs then there are 24 young boys of the Parivahanigam transport department who are out on the streets protesting and they are told that we don't have finance then why did you select them if you have selected them you should have should be appointing them similarly the UPCL pit cool exam was conducted and 252 young boys and girls were selected after selection 150 were given appointments and 102 were not given appointments saying that we don't have the permission to sell so what is this showing this is showing that the that people have understood that this particular party does not know how to run a government how to give us a system we can't give us facilities this is you know if you talk to people they'll say they have made the situation wrong they have made the situation wrong the problem is that every party talks about it even BJP talks about it congress talks about it but I want to come to the point of propaganda which you were mentioning and I want to go back to Anup on this does propaganda really matter to the voter whether it is a voter or with Rakan whether it is a voter or with the Pradesh you see the kind of ad campaigns which Yogi Adityanath is indulging in the Pradesh offer that matter you pick up any state and the BJP's propaganda is there so does it really matter and especially in times when the election is almost gone digital you see a party is investing on digital infrastructure you have digital war rooms all around and there is no other way to reach out to the people except for indulging in propaganda so does it really matter to the voter how much money a party has spent on propaganda or advertising Neelu, my opinion is that sorry I tend to slip into Hindi No, no, no, perfectly fine, perfectly fine, please My opinion is that the voter of Uttarakhand is the voter of our country so the voter continues to evolve election after election and the voter is far more aware, far more informed today and one of the biggest reasons for that is actually the power of social media because you know when you when you communicate through normal you know your own media channels you know it's it's more like one-way communication but because of social media because of the reach of social media I think the voter is far more mature far more clearer in his or her choice number one number two I just you know Miracle is a handmade Sawal I am in a Twitter peg poll Daldia I just want to share that with you and with you know and with you know people who are watching this program so I put a poll on my Twitter handle yesterday and I asked and I read from there with barely four weeks left for the Uttarakhand polls comma have you decided or made up your mind on which party or candidate will you vote for it would be interesting for for all of us to know how and where we stand as a group so I just you know this was my curiosity abhi toh bhai chaar hafta bachay bhai hain. Ab theke bhasale logon is poll mein participatini kiya and you know we all know that these polls are not very scientific but at least they paint a picture and I just want to share with you that 88% people here on this very very limited poll of mine are saying yes I have decided okay well percent are saying no I have not decided so this is not the holy grail but ye still at least you know it paints a picture and the picture that we get is that out of 10 people almost nine are saying that yes I have made up my mind so to come back to your question of propaganda. If I may interrupt you Anoop it's an interesting poll the little poll you've done it's really very interesting that you're saying that it's just a small percentage of people which are saying that you know they've made up their mind. Oh no, I'm not saying that I'm saying that I'm saying that most of the people in the poll didn't take part but 90% people are saying that we've already decided that we've already decided that that's what I'm coming to that's what I was coming to that if the 90% people are saying that they have made up their mind for which party they are going to vote does it really give some kind of an edge to the third alternative which exists right now in Atra Khan and that is our man party because people have seen BJP people have seen congress and does it give a clear roadmap to them for voting for Ahmadi party? My curiosity is there that's why I asked you that question. The sense which I am getting in 2022 is more you know it's more a BJP and a congress battle number one. Number two is that you don't see Ahmadi party if you're going anywhere. I am no expert about what you call Ahmadi party or any party but just you know from you know keeping my eyes and ears open and as an aware citizen the way I feel is that you know the Ahmadi party is on a much much much stronger wicket in Punjab whether they form the government or they don't form we don't know similarly in Goa which has 40 seats very compared to Atra Khan's 70 seats it appears that the Ahmadi party is on a stronger wicket there. Atra Khan is you know we have to keep this in mind Neelu. Atra Khan is 54,000 square kilometers. Atra Khan is not you know some Delhi or some you know Mumbai or whatever you know and sorry I will use a Hindi word again. The diversity of Atra Khan. Atra Khan you know you have the planes you have the hills you know you have this you have that you know you have and even within the hill distates you know then you have different dimensions you have Atra Kashi one way you have Chamoli and you know so it's a lot of regional it's a lot of societal it's a lot of economic it's a lot of cultural nuances and for Ahmadi party you cannot you know you cannot do you know you cannot fight an election in such a big state like Atra Khan with with a terrain of this nature with the climate as it is or whether as it is you know just on the on the basis of one or two faces you know so that is one and the last thing that I want to add here is that okay what do you need to have a key to keep me policy give a key for things or you need five hundred and one hundred and one hundred but again as an aware citizen I take the liberty of calling myself an aware citizen I would have been happier had they come and raised you know and this goes back to one of your earlier what are the issues of Atra Khan. Atra Khan we have a lot of serious issues. We are talking about Why was Atra Khan created? Why was Atra Khan formed? What are the aspirations of the people? Why we still don't have a capital? There are many jungles so there are many such you know grave issues for our Himalayan state for our beautiful state and on those issues you know the Ahmadi party has not really come up with you know I think if they would have been a more vibrant discourse a more vibrant debate maybe intellectually it would have been more stimulating but you know they have left that route and again you know to be fair to them that's the call that they have taken you know who am I you know to judge what their call is so anyway they have chosen to tread the path of this 300 units and you know 5000 rupees and 1000 rupees you know good luck to them but just to summarize my answer 2022 is clearly a BJP versus Congress battle the last thing that I want to add here Neelu I forgot to say that it's a small state so a lot also depends on who is your candidate you know is it Sujata or is it Neelu and then you know do I know Sujata or do I know Neelu and who will work for me so these are the local dynamics they are very vital as you know all of us know too well and more so in the hill constituencies there are nine hill districts there are 34 seats out of 70 and these things matter a lot in such you know constituencies with less electors and even fewer voters absolutely okay in fact I was very keen on having an Ahmadi party spokesperson for this program and I did try reaching out to them but I don't know there was some availability issue and we didn't have anyone on this program but I did cover Uttarakhand election you know in 2012 2017 as well Sujata and at that time I remember on the ground when we went people talked about the divide between the hills and the plains they did talk about that the NGOs were talking the people were talking but this time the divide between the hills and the plains is not being talked about too much by the parties why not from Congress you know there is no need for that and I think that you know any kind of divisiveness is no longer required because the BJP has done enough. The divide in terms of infrastructure divides in terms of emotional divide the sentimental divide the infrastructure divide the political divide it's a divide in the larger sense. Yes no but I was. It's not a level lately as far as the plains and the hills are. Yes but what is very important for us to understand is that Uttarakhand does not reside in Dehradun, Udhamsi Nagar or Nenita. Uttarakhand you know when we asked for Uttarakhand we asked for it because it was a hill state and Pandit Nehru in the early 1900s when he visited Srinagar he raised the pitch for this for the first time that because people in this state you know are have their own kind of geographical conditions so they have their own kind of problems they need to have a separate state for themselves and this was this was continuously raised and you know it was very difficult for us to get this state so even today the biggest issue is like Anup said time is not enough to speak about the migration issue which is the the biggest possible issue if you look at the environmental disasters which are taking place that are going to further make people leave their villages and what are we doing these are you know natural you know prairies so to speak because if we are the bordering state of China then in that particular area we need those people there we can't allow those villages to become ghost villages and Anup will tell you how many hundreds of I think 400 something villages have turned into ghost villages and the reasons for that are that there is no employment there is a problem as far as education is concerned and also you know health so here I would like to add that you know I'm also part of the all India professionals congress I am the vice president of the Uttarakhand chapter so I can tell you for sure how we worked on our manifesto we've gone down to every village and I mean every village we have taken the feedback from there and we are working on a model where we can provide employment to people of different villages according to the needs of that village and what can be for example grown in that village how we can better the entire system as far as connectivity is concerned so that if there is something which needs to be transported something which needs to be marketed all that so we are working on that and once our government is in place you will see that this is going to be a government which will be working on ground with in every village with a specific purpose and this is a this is something that is a you know that is a dream of Raul Gandhi ji so we are going to be implementing it and whatever comes in the manifesto will point towards that so as far as us being a hill state is concerned it is very important for us that people in the hills get the jobs are made to stay in their villages and are given better facilities so we are working towards that and that divide is not really the main issue today the main issue is that the government of the day has you know was voted in because of all the promises that they made and they were you know they they weren't even idealistic promises they were all false promises and people have to recognize that and they need practical solutions which are being offered to them and they realize that you know when they are giving their feedback to us there is somebody who's listening to us there's somebody who wants to know how we can better the systems within the villages so I think the difference is going to be seen in the coming days and this divide is going to disappear between the villages between the rural areas or you know of the hill regions or the urban areas or the plain regions so there will be no divide in every sector every region will be benefited once our government comes into play I mean the voter is going to be the best judge and what all you are promising right now you'll be tested accordingly because the task isn't very easy for Congress as well but one last question to Anup not tell before I wind up the show that whatever factor is is in plain Uttarakhand there's one big factor about which every state talks about is the Modi factor is how dominant is the Modi factor and will it really dominate to that level that it really completely extinguishes all other elements of the election but is it going to be that overriding that it's going to completely extinguish the prospects of Congress as well as I said you know and I've said that you know several times today that it's a seesaw battle you know so which way the cookies going to crumble but so it's a close battle it's an interesting battle it's a battle that you know at least you know I think at least I'm looking forward to the battle because it promises to be a tough battle you know it's not like a one-sided match because nobody likes to you know watch a one-sided match so to say right but you know I have you know to answer your question again I have another perspective and you know with this entire and I want to bring in COVID here and the the threat of the you know the with the Omicron variant and all of that and very briefly mentioned also that you know cases in Uttarakhand have been spiking a lot and you know day after day you know the cases are going up so compared to let's say Delhi or Mumbai where cases might be declining but here both the cases are going up and the positivity rate is also going up now as we all know the EC has imposed curbs on rallies and road shows and so on and so forth I think that this augurs well for the Congress because you know this entire BJP juggernaut you know when the prime minister comes and then this battery of ministers is coming after one after the other so of course we have seen in several states that this model and this formula does not work but we say that there is an atmosphere of elections and that there is an atmosphere and that there is an atmosphere here as well, those flags, those road shows, rallies, you have covered so many elections and there is an atmosphere in people that this party is winning and once again I am talking about a road that I don't want to ruin my vote, why should I vote for Sujata, why should I vote for Anup, why should I vote for Neelu because they are losing, so these are mind games now of course we again we don't know what's going to happen 10 days from now, how will this whole Omicron thing going to play out but as I said that if these curbs remain if the battle remains you know more digital and you know more limited rallies you know 5 people 10 people I think that it's from that point of view from that perspective it is advantage more for the congress because it will neutralize you know Mr Modi in his home turf then naturally you know you can't travel and the warmth you know of course you know this virtual is good we are able to speak to each other but that you know that touch and feel and that you know we know that very well, he is not there so when last time in 2017, Mr Modi gave a speech, the air changed, he gave a speech, he influenced the five different parties around him, so now you know we have to wait and watch but to summarize this time, the 2017 environment that was there, that is why I also said in the beginning it's more like a, you know, issue less election. Yes Sujata very concise if you could just put it across have to wind up now. Yes if Modi was a factor, Bansi Dhar Bhagat who was a cabinet minister at that point of time wouldn't have told his people, no he was the Pradesh Adyaksh of the BJP, he wouldn't have been telling his people to go into their constituencies and work and that they wouldn't get vote on the name of Modi ji and the second thing there would be no polarizing or communalizing strategies being applied to Uttarakhand which has never happened earlier. You know about the Dharam Sansa that don't want to talk about it but the fact is that that has failed miserably because people have realized that the main issues are not being looked at and that is unemployment, migration, health, education so those are the main issues here. Okay so the countdown has begun it's just a single phase poll in Uttarakhand which goes to polls on 14th Feb and we'll all have to wait and watch as to what is going to happen but yes the voter of Uttarakhand is going to be the judge. Thank you so much Anup Nautiaal Sujata, thank you so much for being on NewsClick and next week we'll come up with another battleground from another state. Thank you so much.