Attaining statehood for Uttarakhand was its biggest goal when it was formed in 1979, but the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal failed to become a political force once the State came into being in 2000.
The State’s biggest regional party has never been able to win enough seats in the Assembly, its relevance being reduced to helping either the BJP or the Congress attain the required number to form the government.
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The party won four seats in the 2002 Assembly polls. In 2007, its strength was reduced to three, and all the three MLAs extended support to the BJP government. In 2012, the party got only one seat: the lone MLA, Pritam Singh Panwar, became a part of the Progressive Democratic Front, which helped the Congress form the government.
The party formally entered electoral politics in 1980 when Jaswant Singh Bist won the Ranikhet seat during the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections that year. In the 1985 elections, Kashi Singh Airy of the party won the Didihat seat. While the party won no seats in the 1989 and 1991 elections, Mr. Airy was the only party member to win in the 1993 elections, again from Didihat.
Among its founding fathers, Indramani Badoni and Bipin Tripathi are no more. Mr. Airy is now 65.
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The party boycotted the 1996 elections on the grounds that it would contest the polls only when its demand for statehood for Uttarakhand was met. Calling this the party’s “biggest mistake”, UKD leader Suresh Dalakoti, who is the party’s candidate from Kaladhungi, said, “At that time [Indramani] Badoni ji said that the UKD wouldn’t contest any polls till statehood was achieved. Many party workers and leaders who were driven by political ambition then joined the Congress and the BJP.”
Mr. Airy, however, said, “Politically it was a wrong decision, but it did send a message.”
In 1994, when the Uttarakhand andolan was at its peak and the UKD was emerging as a powerful regional party, the BJP and the Congress approached it with a wish to contribute to the struggle for statehood and the Uttarakhand Sanyukt Sangharsh Samiti was formed. “Through the formation of the samiti, though the andolan attained momentum, the UKD started getting weaker,” Mr Airy said
In the upcoming elections, the party will be fielding candidates in 50 seats and supporting the Left parties and the Uttarakhand Parivartan Party in the remaining 20.