Uttarakhand Election - Assembly & Parliamentary Constituencies

Government & Politics

The Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly, also known as the Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha, is a unicameral governing and law making body of Uttarakhand, one of the 28 states of India. It is situated at Dehradun, the winter capital, and Gairsain, the summer capital of Uttarakhand. The total strength of the assembly is 70 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLA).

As of 22 September 2021, Pushkar Singh Dhami is the current Chief Minister of Uttarakhand and Leader of the House. The Speaker of the Assembly is Premchand Aggarwal. Gurmit Singh is the current Governor of Uttarakhand.

Between 2002 and 2020, Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly had 71 seats, including one reserved seat for the members of Anglo-Indian community that was abolished on 25 January 2020 by the 104th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2019, reducing the strength of Assembly from 71 to 70 seats. Uttarakhand has 5 parliamentary constituencies. The state contributes 3 seats to the upper house, the Rajya Sabha.

Administration:

Divisional administration:

The northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, comprises 2 administrative divisions. Within these 2 divisions, there are a total of 13 districts. A divisional commissioner an officer of Indian Administrative service (IAS) is responsible for heading the administration of a division; the Divisional minister is also responsible for the collection of revenue and maintenance of law and order in his or her division. The 2 divisions are - Kumaon Division and Garhwal Division.

District administration:

A district of an Indian state is an administrative geographical unit. The Indian state of Uttarakhand is made up of 13 administrative districts, headed by a district magistrate and collector, an IAS officer. The district magistrate is responsible for coordinating the work between various departments in the district, is responsible for law and order in the district and is also given the power of an executive magistrate.

Judiciary:

The District Courts in every district and outlying courts in some of Tehsil Headquarters in the State of Uttarakhand are established by the State Government in consultation with the High Court, taking into account the number of cases, topography of the place and population distribution in the district. There are three tier systems of courts functioning at the district level. These district courts at various levels administer justice in Uttarakhand under administrative and supervisory control of the High Court of the State. The High court of Uttarakhand is situated at Nainital. Also,

• The Family Courts are also established in the districts of Dehradun, Haridwar, Pauri, Nainital & Udham Singh Nagar. These courts are presided over by the officers of Higher Judicial Service Cadre.
• The Labour Courts & one Labour Court-cum-Industrial Tribunal (Haldwani) are established in the State in the District of Dehradun, Haridwar, Udham Singh Nagar & Nainital.
• In every District a Consumer Forum and Juvenile Boards are established to deal with the cases of consumers and juveniles respectively. The State Consumer Redressal Commission is established at Dehradun.
• Besides these courts, the Transport Appellate Tribunal, Commercial Trade Tax Tribunal, Cooperative Tribunal, Public Services Tribunal are also established in the State.

To provide the legal aid to the needy people, in every district, the District Legal Services Authority is also functioning in the chairmanship of the District Judge and establishment of State Legal Services Authority is situated in the premises of the High Court at Nainital to look after the work of legal literacy/legal aid in the State.

Uttarakhand Legislature:

The Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly, also known as the Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha, is a unicameral governing and law making body of Uttarakhand, one of the 28 states of India. It is situated at Dehradun, the winter capital, and Gairsain, the summer capital of Uttarakhand. The total strength of the assembly is 70 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLA).

Uttarakhand legislative Assembly Elections 2017:

BJP has all the reasons to be happy with its victory in Uttarakhand as it was this hill state where the attempts to topple the Harish Rawat government were met with failure. The decisive and convincing victory has emboldened BJP for the future. However it has to perfect its balancing act as well and accommodate as many contenders for the top posts as possible. The BJP had not declared its chief ministerial candidate in the state, it won on the charisma of the prime minister which at the moment is monumental.

Dehradun mayor and Dharampur legislator Vinod Chamoli was strongly lobbying for a cabinet berth but denied it openly. 11 ministers along with the chief minister were likely to form the government. Eight-time MLA Harbans Kapoor was indeed a serious contender for the post of cabinet minister.

Ritu Khanduri, daughter of former chief minister BC Khanduri, and Saurabh Bahuguna, son of former CM Vijay Bahuguna, are also strong contenders for a ministerial berth. Vinod Kandari is a new face in the BJP but is also a claimant. He is a former ABVP activist and close RSS.

Rajesh Shukla who defeated Harish Rawat from Kichha and Yatishwaranand who defeated the CM from Haridwar rural are also pitching for the ministerial berth. Who actually gets the place in the cabinet is something only time can tell.

There has always been a challenge in this Hill state to balance the two regions of Garhwal and Kumaon in the ministerial berths. It has also to accommodate the erstwhile ministers in the Khanduri government like Madan Kaushik, Bishan Singh Chufal, Trivendra singh, Harbans Kapoor and Khajan Das, and also the congress rebels who were instrumental in its win like Harak Singh Rawat, Yash Pal Arya, Kunwar Pranav Singh Champion and Subodh Uniyal, who are all strong claimants for the ministerial posts. If BJP has to maintain its position in the state it would have a tough task of keeping everyone happy in the state.

It has been a one-sided election in Uttarakhand. The BJP won 57 seats out of the 70 results declared. It would indeed form the government on its own. The Congress party has managed to win only 11 seats, while Independents won 2 seats. The chief minister of Uttarakhand Harish Rawat lost the election as well.

The Exit polls had predicted a close contest in the state with a slight edge to the BJP. But they have been proved wrong as it is a convincing victory for the BJP in the state. Development was one of the major issues in the elections. Earlier, Harish Rawat had managed to survive an attempt to topple his government and had played the victim card, but the results show that it did not work.

Lok Sabha Elections 2019

In 2009 Election Results the UPA won around 261 out of 543 seats, and in the second position was NDA with 158 seats, while 23 seats were won by Left parties.

In the 2014 Election Results the BJP won 282 seats out of 543 seats. This took the NDA tally to 336 seats out of 543 seats in the Lok Sabha. INC could only manage to win 44 seats and stayed in the second position while AIADMK party from Tamil Nadu came third with 37 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections.

In 2019, the BJP is set to return to power at the Centre after a sweeping win in the 2019 Lok Sabha election , armed with a bigger mandate than in the 2014 General Election. The party - led by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah duo has secured 303 seats in the 17th Lok Sabha. Meanwhile, the Congress, the main Opposition party, managed to increase its vote share from 2014 only by a handful of votes, with a final tally of 52 seats. There will be no Leader of Opposition in the upcoming Lower House for a second consecutive term.

Major issues that Uttarakhand currently faces:

Unemployment - It is the basic problem which has given birth to a number of connected problems, such as poverty, social disorder, insecurity, maintenance of law and order etc. In the State of Uttarakhand. At the time of establishment of Uttarakhand State though the government made and announced many policies to recover the problem of unemployment, yet it is also the big truth that the government remained unable to achieve the target of full employment.

Migration - Countering migration from the state has become an emotive issue. A part of the problem is this: the total number of people unemployed has nearly doubled to 938,000 in 2015-16 from 565,000 five years ago. Going by media reports, out of the 16,793 villages, about 3,000 hardly have any residents. Hundreds of villages in the state have seen a rapid trend of migration, especially by the youth due to lack of education and employment opportunities. According to the 2011 census migration data, about 97,700 people had migrated from Uttarakhand to cities and towns in other states in the past 10 years.

Irrigation: The scarcity of water is still a major problem in Uttarakhand. Agricultural land remains barren because of a lack of irrigation facilities in the state, while water is not even available for everyday household chores. In villages, women have to walk for miles every day to fetch water.

Deforestation: The state's forest wealth is on the verge of depletion because of deforestation. An unregulated collection of forest material and alleged encroachment of forest land has led to this. Illegal wildlife trade is rampant to get fur, bones, tusks, feathers and glands from animals. But despite this, animal poaching hasn't been curbed, resulting in several species of animals being included in the endangered category.

Corruption - One of the biggest impediments to development of Uttarakhand is corruption. 50% citizens of Uttarakhand who participated in the survey admitted to paying a bribe to get their work done, out of which 25% gave bribes several times (directly or indirectly) while 25% paid bribes once or twice (directly or indirectly). 50% said they got work done without paying a bribe. In terms of authority to which residents of Uttarakhand gave bribes, 67% gave bribes to property registration and land issues while 33% paid bribes to others (Electricity Board, Transport Office, Tax Office, etc.)

Lok Sabha Elections 2019 - Party Wise Election Results

Lok Sabha Elections 2019 - Constituency Wise Election Results (Winner/Runner Up)