The elections in Uttarakhand will be a close contest with both BJP and Congress literally running neck and neck, as per the ABP-CVOTER Battle for the States survey.

The 70-member Uttarakhand Assembly will go to the polls on February 14, while the votes will be counted on March 10. As per the survey, the BJP is projected to win 34 seats, one more than Congress' 33. The sample size for the survey was 7,304 across 70 Assembly seats in Uttarakhand.

The most interesting aspect of the elections is who is the preferred chief ministerial candidate. Veteran leader and former CM Harish Rawat of the Congress with 37 percent backing is miles ahead of incumbent Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, who gets the support of approximately 29 percent of the voters.

The numbers for Rawat have grown continuously since late 2021 from 30 percent as his starting point. It is rare for an incumbent Chief Minister to trail so far behind an opposition leader, but given the rapid change of three CMs within a year by the BJP in the state, this is hardly surprising.

In normal circumstances, this should have led to a comfortable victory projection for the Congress in Uttarakhand. But the poll tracker has consistently shown the fight to be an extremely close one with both parties literally running neck and neck.

There can be no doubt that the BJP has gone through a big-time erosion in voter support in the state. In the 2017 elections, the party had secured 46.5 percent vote share, which is projected to fall by 8 percent this time around. It had won 57 seats in the 2017 elections. It is projected to go down by 23 seats this time.

The erosion is acute in the Kumaon and Terai or the plains in the state. While they run neck and neck in Kumaon, Congress with a 40.1 percent vote share is far ahead of the BJP, which is projected to get 35.6 percent. It is the Garhwal region that seems to be saving the BJP with a 41.1 percent vote share compared to 36.1 percent for Congress.

There seem to be many contenders for the top post in the BJP with Anil Baluni, Bhagat Singh Koshyari, Major General B.C. Khanduri and Satpal Maharaj getting meddling to decent support from the voters. The frequent changes in chief ministership seem to have confused the voters. But if you add up their numbers, the grand total of BJP candidates as the CM choice is ahead of Harish Rawat.

A few recent decisions by the BJP seem to have helped the saffron party. The first was picking up a grassroots worker like Dhami as the Chief Minister. The second was the revocation of the order and a Bill passed in the Assembly to take over control of 52 temples, including the important ones like Kedarnath and Badrinath. The last is the appeal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi whose campaign there is picking up momentum.

Just some time back, Harish Rawat had created a storm by sending out cryptic social media messages on the eve of the New Year, hinting at intense infighting within the Congress. Subsequently, he came to Delhi and met the party high command and went back pacified. But if infighting persists, Congress might lose a state it has a decent chance of winning.

Without the Aam Aadmi Party factor, it is possible that Congress could have comfortably won Uttarakhand. The poll tracker clearly shows that the AAP is getting a large chunk of anti-BJP votes, apart from creating its own new base of voters like it seems to be doing in Goa.

The AAP had zero vote share in 2017 since it did not formally contest the elections. But for the 2022 Assembly elections, it is projected to garner a vote share of 12.9 percent. As is known, a vote share below the threshold of 15 percent doesn't translate into many seats. So, the AAP is projected to win just 3 seats. The more important point is, in how many seats will it ensure a Congress loss.

In the plains, the Congress appears comfortably ahead but could have been sweeping the elections if new entrant AAP was not eating up the anti-incumbent votes there. In many ways, the numbers suggest that if the Congress house was in order and Harish Rawat would have been given enough time to focus on Uttarakhand rather than pathing up things in Punjab, this could have been a different story now.

While everyone has to wait for the 2021 Census results, there are indications that there has been a change in the demography of the plains since 2011. If true, this could play a big role.

The Assembly elections in Uttarakhand are a contest between Harish Rawat and BJP's misrule, former Chief Minister of the state Harish Rawat told IANS in an exclusive interview.

Here are the excerpts from the interview:

Q. Who do you think is the contest with -- Pushkar Singh Dhami vs Harish Rawat or BJP vs Congress?

A. This contest will be Harish Rawat vs the BJP. Because Pushkar Singh Dhami is just a small pawn, whom the party has put forward to dodge anti-incumbency and to avoid questions being raised within the BJP.

Q. Are you sure that you will come back to power with full majority?

A. Yes, we will come back with a very good majority, and we have told the voters that if you are happy with us, then vote so that we can easily form the government and give you a good government.

Q. So can we say if Congress comes to power, then Harish Rawat is going to be the next Chief Minister of Uttarakhand?

A. Right now all I can say is that a Congressperson is going to be the next Chief Minister in March, and it is my responsibility to ensure this. But who will be the Chief Minister, the party will decide.

Q. Have the internal bickerings in the party for quite some time ended? Or is it still going on?

A. There is no tension in the party, but whatever it is, it will not affect the party's prospects in the elections. That much I can say.

Q. BJP says that PM Modi has a lot of influence in Uttarakhand, Harish Rawat will not be able to overcome that. What do you think?

A. Look, if Modi ji was contesting the election here then people would be comparing Modi ji with Harish Rawat. People here have to choose their chief minister, and in the last five years, people have been disappointed. A double-engine government was formed on the call of PM Modi, but that government failed on all fronts. Now if Modi ji apologizes to the people that he made a mistake then, people may consider his appeal. But people are saying that if double engine government comes again, it will be a disaster. That's why people are now looking towards Harish Rawat.

Q. What do you think about a digital campaign, will you be able to use it, that too in a place where there is no good internet connectivity in many areas?

A. Look, we will face all the challenges which come our way. The challenge may come in any form. I have also started addressing digitally. Yesterday I did the first digital address, in which more than 20,000 people joined. Even today I am holding an election meeting in Haldwani. We are adapting ourselves to the emerging challenges.

Q. You say that Dhami is a pawn, the election will be between BJP and Harish Rawat. That is, between Harish Rawat and Modi?

A. The election will be against the BJP which has imposed this useless government in Uttarakhand.

Q. On what issues you will be fighting in the election?

A. Obviously unemployment is a big issue in Uttarakhand, yet there are other issues -- law and order, inflation, misgovernance, indiscriminate mining. Health and medical infrastructure have collapsed in the state, this is a big issue. The issues are many, the thing is that development has been stalled for five years. And the state's economy has completely collapsed.

Q. The people of your party say that under Harish Rawat, small leaders do not get opportunities, they are not able to move ahead, what would you like to say?

A. This is not true. I have helped all the leaders of this generation to move forward from time to time. So it's not like that, and there are challenges in politics, and everyone has to face this. And I want to wish all my friends the best that they should face the challenges bravely.

The elections in Uttarakhand will be a close contest with both BJP and Congress literally running neck and neck, as per the ABP-CVOTER Battle for the States survey.

The 70-member Uttarakhand Assembly will go to the polls on February 14, while the votes will be counted on March 10. As per the survey, the BJP is projected to win 34 seats, one more than Congress' 33. The sample size for the survey was 7,304 across 70 Assembly seats in Uttarakhand.

The most interesting aspect of the elections is who is the preferred chief ministerial candidate. Veteran leader and former CM Harish Rawat of the Congress with 37 percent backing is miles ahead of incumbent Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, who gets the support of approximately 29 percent of the voters.

The numbers for Rawat have grown continuously since late 2021 from 30 percent as his starting point. It is rare for an incumbent Chief Minister to trail so far behind an opposition leader, but given the rapid change of three CMs within a year by the BJP in the state, this is hardly surprising.

In normal circumstances, this should have led to a comfortable victory projection for the Congress in Uttarakhand. But the poll tracker has consistently shown the fight to be an extremely close one with both parties literally running neck and neck.

There can be no doubt that the BJP has gone through a big-time erosion in voter support in the state. In the 2017 elections, the party had secured 46.5 percent vote share, which is projected to fall by 8 percent this time around. It had won 57 seats in the 2017 elections. It is projected to go down by 23 seats this time.

The erosion is acute in the Kumaon and Terai or the plains in the state. While they run neck and neck in Kumaon, Congress with a 40.1 percent vote share is far ahead of the BJP, which is projected to get 35.6 percent. It is the Garhwal region that seems to be saving the BJP with a 41.1 percent vote share compared to 36.1 percent for Congress.

There seem to be many contenders for the top post in the BJP with Anil Baluni, Bhagat Singh Koshyari, Major General B.C. Khanduri and Satpal Maharaj getting meddling to decent support from the voters. The frequent changes in chief ministership seem to have confused the voters. But if you add up their numbers, the grand total of BJP candidates as the CM choice is ahead of Harish Rawat.

A few recent decisions by the BJP seem to have helped the saffron party. The first was picking up a grassroots worker like Dhami as the Chief Minister. The second was the revocation of the order and a Bill passed in the Assembly to take over control of 52 temples, including the important ones like Kedarnath and Badrinath. The last is the appeal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi whose campaign there is picking up momentum.

Just some time back, Harish Rawat had created a storm by sending out cryptic social media messages on the eve of the New Year, hinting at intense infighting within the Congress. Subsequently, he came to Delhi and met the party high command and went back pacified. But if infighting persists, Congress might lose a state it has a decent chance of winning.

Without the Aam Aadmi Party factor, it is possible that Congress could have comfortably won Uttarakhand. The poll tracker clearly shows that the AAP is getting a large chunk of anti-BJP votes, apart from creating its own new base of voters like it seems to be doing in Goa.

The AAP had zero vote share in 2017 since it did not formally contest the elections. But for the 2022 Assembly elections, it is projected to garner a vote share of 12.9 percent. As is known, a vote share below the threshold of 15 percent doesn't translate into many seats. So, the AAP is projected to win just 3 seats. The more important point is, in how many seats will it ensure a Congress loss.

In the plains, the Congress appears comfortably ahead but could have been sweeping the elections if new entrant AAP was not eating up the anti-incumbent votes there. In many ways, the numbers suggest that if the Congress house was in order and Harish Rawat would have been given enough time to focus on Uttarakhand rather than pathing up things in Punjab, this could have been a different story now.

While everyone has to wait for the 2021 Census results, there are indications that there has been a change in the demography of the plains since 2011. If true, this could play a big role.

The Assembly elections in Uttarakhand are a contest between Harish Rawat and BJP's misrule, former Chief Minister of the state Harish Rawat told IANS in an exclusive interview.

Here are the excerpts from the interview:

Q. Who do you think is the contest with -- Pushkar Singh Dhami vs Harish Rawat or BJP vs Congress?

A. This contest will be Harish Rawat vs the BJP. Because Pushkar Singh Dhami is just a small pawn, whom the party has put forward to dodge anti-incumbency and to avoid questions being raised within the BJP.

Q. Are you sure that you will come back to power with full majority?

A. Yes, we will come back with a very good majority, and we have told the voters that if you are happy with us, then vote so that we can easily form the government and give you a good government.

Q. So can we say if Congress comes to power, then Harish Rawat is going to be the next Chief Minister of Uttarakhand?

A. Right now all I can say is that a Congressperson is going to be the next Chief Minister in March, and it is my responsibility to ensure this. But who will be the Chief Minister, the party will decide.

Q. Have the internal bickerings in the party for quite some time ended? Or is it still going on?

A. There is no tension in the party, but whatever it is, it will not affect the party's prospects in the elections. That much I can say.

Q. BJP says that PM Modi has a lot of influence in Uttarakhand, Harish Rawat will not be able to overcome that. What do you think?

A. Look, if Modi ji was contesting the election here then people would be comparing Modi ji with Harish Rawat. People here have to choose their chief minister, and in the last five years, people have been disappointed. A double-engine government was formed on the call of PM Modi, but that government failed on all fronts. Now if Modi ji apologizes to the people that he made a mistake then, people may consider his appeal. But people are saying that if double engine government comes again, it will be a disaster. That's why people are now looking towards Harish Rawat.

Q. What do you think about a digital campaign, will you be able to use it, that too in a place where there is no good internet connectivity in many areas?

A. Look, we will face all the challenges which come our way. The challenge may come in any form. I have also started addressing digitally. Yesterday I did the first digital address, in which more than 20,000 people joined. Even today I am holding an election meeting in Haldwani. We are adapting ourselves to the emerging challenges.

Q. You say that Dhami is a pawn, the election will be between BJP and Harish Rawat. That is, between Harish Rawat and Modi?

A. The election will be against the BJP which has imposed this useless government in Uttarakhand.

Q. On what issues you will be fighting in the election?

A. Obviously unemployment is a big issue in Uttarakhand, yet there are other issues -- law and order, inflation, misgovernance, indiscriminate mining. Health and medical infrastructure have collapsed in the state, this is a big issue. The issues are many, the thing is that development has been stalled for five years. And the state's economy has completely collapsed.

Q. The people of your party say that under Harish Rawat, small leaders do not get opportunities, they are not able to move ahead, what would you like to say?

A. This is not true. I have helped all the leaders of this generation to move forward from time to time. So it's not like that, and there are challenges in politics, and everyone has to face this. And I want to wish all my friends the best that they should face the challenges bravely.