Click to play videoNew Delhi: In poll-bound Uttarakhand, migration of youth has always been a major issue but these elections, even the top state leadership seems to be migrating away from the hills. They're contesting elections from the more comfortable Tarai region.
Unlike the past, the Chief Minister BC Khanduri this time has been forced to reach out to new voters even the Muslims. The new delimitation forcing Khanduri to migrate himself from his traditional Doomakoat seat in the hills to Kotdwar in the Tarai plains.
Khanduri says, "The delimitation should not be the only criterion, even the geographical area should be taken into account."
Not only Khanduri, his predecessor and former chief minister Ramesh Pokhariyaal Nishank has also opted for a safer constituency down in the Doon valley.
With a steady migration of the population away from the hills, the demography and hence of the polity of the state is changing steadily. In the delimitation exercise conducted just before the elections, the number of seats in the hill state have reduced by almost ten per cent and have been added to the plains or the Tarai.
The Congress is not far behind. Three times MP from Almora and now union minister Harish Rawat contested from Haridwar with substantial Muslim population. So have other prominant Congress leaders, including Congress MP Satpal Maharaj's wife Amrita Rawat and state president Yashpal Ayra.
The latest decennial estimates indicate a 5 per cent away migration of population, especially the youth towards plains in search of population and ironically for a state formed a decade ago to fulfill political aspirations of the hilly region of undivided UP, the leaders are following suit.
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