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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 NEW DELHI 000987 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PTER PREL PINR KDEM IN
SUBJECT: BHARAT BALLOT 2009:  UTTARAKHAND SUFFERING FROM 
LACK OF DEVELOPMENT, DIVISION AMONG ITS PEOPLE 
 
REF: NEW DELHI 933 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: PolOff and PolFSN traveled north to 
Uttarakhand on May 11 to assess the political landscape of 
this small state with five parliamentary seats up for grabs. 
In discussions with a mix of local journalists, academics, 
business leaders, and state civil servants, the themes that 
we heard over and over again were a need for jobs and 
development, the damage of corruption, and how the state 
needs an integrated plan to meet the different needs of the 
hill districts and the plains region to move the entire state 
forward. Another recurring topic was how both the Congress 
and the BJP treated Uttarakhand as a hill state instead of a 
composite of the two regions. Some of our interlocutors 
claimed that the state government has exacerbated the 
differences between the regions by favoring people from the 
hills when it came to the disbursement of development funds 
and hiring for government jobs. The conventional wisdom of 
political watchers was that the BJP and Congress would 
maintain control of the two parliamentary seats that each has 
in the state and one seat may switch from the Samajwadi Party 
to the Bahujan Samaj Party. End Summary. 
 
¶2. (U) Driving into the capital city of Dehradun from its 
airport, PolOff noticed a distinct difference in the quality 
of life compared to that of western Uttar Pradesh, the state 
that Uttarakhand broke away from in 2000. Most houses looked 
like they had been stuccoed and freshly painted, instead of 
made of raw brick. Many of them were two stories. Trees are 
abundant and the air is fresher. The wide flat valley is 
surrounded on one side by forested hills, and on the other, 
by much higher mountains, a sharp reminder that we were in 
the foothills of the Himalayas. The two-lane road wound 
through forest for much of our thirty-minute journey to the 
capital. 
 
Looks Like An Election 
------------ 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Another noticeable difference from Uttar Pradesh 
was that in Uttarakhand the political parties had decided to 
put some of their limited campaign money - the amount they 
can spend is restricted by the Election Commission -- into 
the traditional party banners, posters, and billboards. Most 
pictured their national party leaders with the local 
candidate to ensure that the cost of the advertising will 
come out of the national party's funds, not the candidate's. 
The regional Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party had put 
up some posters and billboards, but most belonged to the 
Congress party and the BJP. On May 11, the last day allowed 
for campaigning, we saw that the BJP and Congress had sound 
trucks out in one of the roadside villages. In Dehradun, a 
BJP motorcycle rally passed by our hotel a few times, with 
flags flying and the riders chanting their party's name. 
Rental cars were scarce in the capital because the political 
parties had rented them for campaigning; we paid twice the 
normal rate for ours. 
 
Desperately Desiring Development 
----------- 
 
¶4. (SBU) Our interlocutors in Dehradun said the highest 
priority in the state is the need for development. Many 
places further up in the hills need schools, health care, and 
public transportation. The government-run hospital in 
Dehradun lacks the facilities to diagnose and treat cancer. 
Many roads are inadequate and lack guard rails, an important 
safety feature in an area where many roads have precipitous 
drop-offs at their sides. This issue was brought home on the 
two-lane road to Mussoorie, a hill station established by the 
British in the 1800s and one of Uttarakhand's main tourist 
attractions today; carved out of the hillside, the road has 
guardrails and small concrete barriers but little else to 
keep one from plummeting over the edge for thousands of feet 
should the driver's skills fail going around many of its 
 
NEW DELHI 00000987  002 OF 003 
 
 
hairpin curves. There is no shoulder next to the road for the 
most part. 
 
¶5. (SBU) One journalist characterized the BJP-run state 
government as ideologically bankrupt and only focused on 
making money. He alleged the government had claimed falsely 
that Maoist insurgents were coming into the state, rounded up 
some Nepalese citizens to support these claims, and then 
requisitioned security supplies from the center to fight the 
threat the government had engineered. The government has also 
closed down three power plant projects because of 
environmental concerns and political pressure from Hindu 
nationalists opposed to disrupting the flow of the Ganges, 
which they consider sacred. The government supposedly wants 
to make Uttarakhand a tourism-focused state, but our 
journalist interlocutor said it has no policy for bringing 
more tourists into the state. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Many of our interlocutors said that the previous 
Congress Party state government was horribly corrupt, but it 
also made progress in the development of the state during its 
tenure. They claimed that the public misses former Congress 
Chief Minister N. D. Tiwari, saying that he was the only one 
who had a vision for the state and could move initiatives 
forward. Now the state has a government that is corrupt but 
doesn't follow through on what it has been bribed to do. 
 
¶7. (SBU) The assessment we received in Dehradun was that the 
BJP candidates are not talking about development during the 
parliamentary election campaign, but instead are making 
emotional speeches designed to appeal to voters' caste or 
religious identities. The Congress Party candidates aren't 
talking about the party's vision for the state either. Their 
campaigns are based on criticism of the BJP state government. 
If the BJP loses the electoral race, it will be a vote 
against the party's control of the state, not a vote for 
Congress. Currently, the BJP holds two seats in parliament, 
the Congress Party has two seats, and the Samajwadi Party 
controls the remaining one. A Dehradun business leader and 
former BJP supporter said that Congress is the only party 
qualified to rule India because the Prime Minister is an 
economist and former Finance Minister. He had doubts about 
the BJP's abilities to handle such issues. 
 
BSP Making Inroads 
----------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) Many of our interlocutors took note of the race for 
the Haridwar seat, which has been designated as a reserved 
seat -- one set aside for scheduled caste or scheduled tribe 
candidates -- through the recent nation-wide redistricting 
exercise. If the Dalits and the Muslims - combined the two 
groups make up around half of Haridwar's electorate - support 
the BSP, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's party is 
likely to win the seat because the other half of the 
electorate will be split between Congress and the BJP.  One 
of our interlocutors said that the BSP candidate, who is a 
Muslim, is best qualified because he is a former member of 
the legislative assembly and he "talks sense." It was not yet 
clear to our contacts, however, that the Muslim and Dalit 
communities would vote as a block. 
 
¶9. (U) The Nainital-Udhamsingh Nagar parliamentary district 
features a three-cornered fight between the BJP, the BSP, and 
the Congress. Our interlocutors said that both the BJP and 
Congress Party were running strong candidates. The Congress 
candidate is the incumbent, K. C. Singh Baba. The BSP 
candidate has been working the constituency for two years. 
With Nainital as with Haridwar, the race will depend upon how 
cohesive the minority communities are in casting their votes. 
 
Holy City of Haridwar Full of Resentment 
----------------- 
 
¶10. (SBU) Haridwar, considered one of the holiest places in 
 
NEW DELHI 00000987  003 OF 003 
 
 
India, has many temples, with saffron-clad pilgrims walking 
along the road, billboards of Lord Ram, a large statue of the 
god Shiva near the river, and a profusion of ghats -- steps 
along the riverbank -- to ease the way for ritualistic 
bathing where the Ganges flows through the town. BJP campaign 
flags and billboards dominated the area; there were few 
Congress posters to be seen. Haridwar also has a noticeable 
population of people living in lean-tos made up of scrap 
material. Apparently not all of Haridwar's residents can 
afford to enjoy "Fun Valley," the water park sporting 
depictions of Winnie the Pooh and Shrek on its walls that is 
located among farmland and lumber yards on the road between 
Haridwar and Dehradun. 
 
¶11. (SBU) We sat down with a group of community leaders, 
including professors, a businessman and a religious 
instructor who all supported the BJP, claiming only a 
national party like the BJP can run the country. They 
criticized the regional parties, such as the BSP and the 
Samajwadi Party, for caring only about parochial interests, 
saying that they are ill-equipped to take care of India's 
external affairs. Their ideal candidate for Parliament would 
be someone who adhered to the ideology of the national party, 
who led a clean life with no hint of corruption, but who was 
from the area and in touch with the grass roots.  They 
assessed that the BJP candidate for Haridwar was close enough 
to that ideal to gain their support. 
 
¶12. (SBU) Nevertheless, the discussants were quite 
dissatisfied with the BJP's running of the state and they 
said they've made that clear to the party. When Uttarakhand 
split from Uttar Pradesh, much of the impetus behind that 
fight was to break away from a capital that ignored the hill 
region. Now the reverse is happening and both the BJP and 
Congress treat Uttarakhand as a hill state and ignore the 
plains region, according to our interlocutors from 
plains-city Haridwar. They said that this is breeding 
resentment among the public towards the state government in 
the three plains districts. They claimed that the BJP 
sidelines any up and comers from the plains in its party; all 
of the political leadership is from the hills. Government 
jobs primarily go to applicants from the hills. Even 
development funds from the central government that were 
specifically designated for the plains region have gone to 
waste because the state government refused to use them, 
instead demanding more money for the hills region. 
 
¶13. (SBU)  When Uttarakhand became a state, a regulation was 
instituted that no one can be considered a native of the 
state unless they can prove that they or their ancestors 
lived there before 1930. Otherwise, they are considered a 
permanent resident and receive fewer benefits from the state. 
This exacerbates the hills/plains divide because most of the 
people who moved into the state after 1930 settled in the 
plains region. Our interlocutors assessed that this growing 
resentment toward the BJP and Congress is opening up an 
opportunity for the BSP to win the Haridwar seat, which has 
fielded a local Muslim. No one gave the Samajwadi Party much 
chance of maintaining control of the seat. 
 
¶14. (SBU) Comment:  Uttarakhand's natural beauty and holy 
sites attract religious tourists as well as people trying to 
escape the heat of the great Gangetic plain. The young state 
has a long way to go before it can reap the fruits that were 
envisioned in 2000 when it became a separate state. Despite 
the poor development record and many resentments among the 
voters, the BJP is likely to maintain its control over two 
seats with the Congress keeping its two seats. The one seat 
that is most likely to change hands is Haridwar, if Mayawati 
and her candidate can consolidate the Dalit and Muslim vote. 
 
BURLEIGH