It's has been observed that big newspapers like Times of India, Dainik Jagran etc. keep putting Uttarakhand Raksha Morcha (URM) on the same pedestal as the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD). When the both can never be compared. In short, it's too clever to call Uttarakhand Raksha Morcha (URM) a key regional political party.

The only genuine regional party of Uttarakhand is UKD and the reasons are obvious.

Equal number of votes don't make two political parties equal: 

The candidates of both Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) and Uttarakhand Raksha Morcha (URM) lost their deposits in the recent Tehri Lok Sabha By Poll. While the top two candidates the BJP's Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah (245835 votes) and the defeated Congress party’s candidate Saket Bahuguna (223141 votes), individually got in excess of 2 Lakh votes; the UKD candidate, the party which is the main regional party and is superficially credited for the creation of Uttarakhand state, got just 6939 votes. Kunwar Jupinder Singh, the URM candidate, got only 7466 votes.

As can be seen the two parties received almost the same number of votes. But does that make them comparable. Absolutely not. The answer lies in the history and the political wisdom of the two parties.

The Uttarakhand Raksha Morcha was founded just two or three years ago. The very foundation of URM was on the grounds that "Congress hadn't treated an Army man, Lt. gen. TPS Rawat well". The party was not founded on regional aspirations.

The very name of URM is a misnomer, the testimoney to this is the MLA constituency wise breakage of URM's votes. The party couldn't manage to get votes at Dehradun Cantt, a constituency dominated by Defence personnel. Interestingly, BJP fared well in the constituency. Let I not mince the words here, URM is an alias of BJP.

No Party showed political Wisdom, that reflects Pro-regional bias:

If Uttarakhand Kranti Dal(UKD)would have shown a pro-regional sentiment; then it wouldn't have contested the Tehri Lok Sabha By Poll; the same way it didn't contest the Sitarganj By poll. The reason is simple: If you want to bring money to your constituency, you have to come to good books of both the Central and the State Government. Since the same party has Governments at both the places, UKD, by not contesting the by poll and lending support to Congress, had a golden opportunity to bring projects and money to their party and its MLA Pritam Singh Panwar's constituency; but it chose a different path.

If Uttarakhand Raksha Morcha (URM) would have been a genuine regional party, it would have genuinely supported Congress, for the same reasons as the UKD.

Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) head Chowdhary Ajit Singh does this all the time. As he tries to keep intact RLD's regional bias.

But both didn't do that. The reason URM is not a regional party and UKD has ceased to remain one.

Here's a Forecast:

The reason why UKD didn't show political wisdom wrt Tehri Lok Sabha By poll is that it has become a party of BJP and Congress minded People. So don't be surprsed, if you see Trivendra Singh Panwar head for BJP and Pritam Singh Panwar to Congress.  Another forecast is re-entry of TPS Rawat to BJP.


Future of Regional parties in Uttarakhand Looks Bleak:

If Uttarakhand happens to become a state of Congress and BJP, all the regional aspirations go down the drain. You will notice that, in no time, Uttarakhand will become a state where we will NOT be discussing employment, education, safeguarding state's land and water resources; but the growing power needs of northern power grid, irrigation water to north India, animal slaughter in Uttarakhand temples, auspicious Ganga, Bhagvat Kathas etc.

Uttarakhand not having strong regional parties is sad.

[PS: In his book "Assi Ki Kashi", Kashinath Singh, narrates an incident, where a group of so called preliterate (in Hindi "Buddhijivi") in Banaras, used to eagerly wait for Vinod Dua and Pranoy Roy anchored Lok Sabha poll Analysis, telecast live during counting of votes. The group, which was in a habit of discussing  national politics at a Tea shop, 365 days a year; watched without disruption the three day long live event; while actively discussing the various permutations and combinations. No wonder, Uttar Pradesh is at the bottom of the Development Index.]

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