With religious sites like Kedarnath and Badrinath, landmarks such as Jim Corbett National Park, and areas impacted by critical issues like Joshimath under its jurisdiction, the importance of Uttarakhand’s Garhwal defines the campaign of Baluni, who is fighting his first Lok Sabha polls from the constituency. Elections here are on April 19.

At 9 am on a Sunday, after a traditional breakfast, he sets off on the campaign trail — in a white kurta-pyjama, a blue jacket, a saffron scarf featuring the lotus, and canvas shoes.

The day’s itinerary entails a visit to the Ghantakarna Devta temple in the morning and a Ganga aarti at Devprayag Sangam in the evening. Additionally, his campaign team has identified 18 stops, including numerous public gatherings and “nukkad sabhas” (street corner meetings).

“Campaign in the hills is very  different. Villages here are in the interiors. The people love us, which is why they came to the roads. We share our greetings and move to the next destination. We do this at 25-30 spots in a day on average. The plan is to cover around 300 km every day,” Baluni tells The Indian Express as his cavalcade makes a brief halt.

He gets down from his vehicle and greets a group of women holding BJP flags and raising slogans of “Aa gayi Bhajapa, chha gayi Bhajapa” and “Anil Baluni zindabad.” After clicking selfies with them, he seeks their permission to leave and resumes his journey to the temple.

“During campaigning, we can’t spend the night at the same place we started our day. Even the meals are not decided. I have a breakfast of roti-sabzi or paratha-dahi. I carry some fruits in my car, and for lunch, we generally get dal-bhat (rice and lentils) prepared by supporters. Then there is a cup of evening tea, if there is time, and a simple dinner at whichever hotel I am staying in,” says Baluni.

“The temperature fluctuation also has its challenges. If I am in Kedarnath Vidhan Sabha, the temperature will be around 10 degrees. But suddenly if I go to Kotdwar, the temperature increases threefold. All of this causes throat infection so I gargle with hot water and take steam every day,” he says.

Baluni, who serves as the national chief spokesperson for the BJP, was selected as the party’s Rajya Sabha candidate from Uttarakhand in 2018.

The last time he contested an election was in 2005, when the Supreme Court ruled the cancellation of his nomination from the Kotdwar Assembly seat in 2002 as unjust.

Subsequently, by-elections were conducted in 2005, which he lost.

Baluni says the current campaign is different in the sense that he is now the BJP media head, and thus much more experienced and with a better understanding of how an election campaign works. A team from Delhi keeps him updated on major social media developments related to his campaign. At the same time, he continues his duties as the national media in-charge, keeping a tab on updates from across the country.

Around 4 pm, as his cavalcade reaches Maletha area, a meal is prepared by local BJP MLA Vinod Kandari at his office there. Half an hour later, the journey resumes.

Addressing a gathering of 50-60 people in the Kirti Nagar area, Baluni promises that the whole of Uttarakhand will be developed in Modi’s third term — from people migrating back to the state to employment for every household. He says the new Rishikesh-Karanprayag railway line will transform the area and bring a surge in tourism.

From vaccines for all at the height of the pandemic and free ration to over 80 crore individuals, Ayushman cards, implementation of Kisan Samman Nidhi, and allocation of housing to 4 crore people, Baluni says the work of the Centre finds an echo in each home in the state.

“People recognise that this election is about choosing the Prime Minister, making it a vote for Narendra Modi… Looking ahead, our agenda focuses on ‘developed India, developed Uttarakhand, and developed Garhwal’. We are committed to developing destinations, curbing migration, and ensuring employment opportunities in every household, with tourism serving as the primary driver,” he says.

He also takes on the Congress for questioning the valour and bravery of the country’s first Chief of Defence Staff, the late General Bipin Rawat.

Baluni is up against Congress’s former state president Ganesh Godiyal, a two-time MLA from the Thalisain seat (removed in 2012 following the delimitation) and Srinagar constituency. Godiyal had lost the 2022 election from the Srinagar seat to BJP’s Dhan Singh Rawat, with a narrow margin of 587 votes.

The Garhwal Lok Sabha constituency comprises 14 Vidhan Sabha segments — Badrinath, Tharali, Karnaprayag, Kedarnath, Rudraprayag, Devprayag, Narendranagar, Yamkeshwar, Pauri, Srinagar, Chavbattakhal, Lansdowne, Kotdwar, and Ramnagar.

These segments fall within five districts — Chamoli, Rudraprayag, Tehri Garhwal, Pauri Garhwal, and Nainital.

In the 2022 Vidhan Sabha elections, the BJP emerged victorious in 13 of these Vidhan Sabha seats, leaving Badrinath as the sole assembly seat held by the Congress.

However, the incumbent Congress MLA Rajendra Singh Bhandari recently defected to the BJP. In 2014, the seat was won by senior BJP leader and former Uttarakhand chief minister Major General (Retd) Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri, who defeated senior Congress leader Harak Singh Rawat.

In 2019, former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat secured the seat for the BJP after defeating Congress’s Manish Khanduri, who recently joined the BJP.

Around 7.30 pm, Baluni reaches the Devprayag Sangam, where the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi rivers converge to form Ganga, for the evening aarti. “I started the campaign from Ghantakarna Devta temple and ended at the Devprayag Ganga aarti. The day could not have been any better,” he says.

Back at the hotel, Baluni says, they will discuss all that happened during the day, the response they received, what the Opposition did, and plan for the next day.

On several occasions in the recent past, including his rally this month in Uttarakhand’s Rudrapur and his visit to Kedarnath in 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that the current decade will be the “Decade of Uttarakhand”.

“Today Uttarakhand has all kinds of modern connectivity. The BJP has given 85,000 houses to the poor, water connection to 12 lakh houses, over 5.5 lakh toilets, free gas connection to 5 lakh women, property cards to 3 lakh people under the Swamitva Yojna, and opened bank accounts for 35 lakh people in the state. The BJP has directly deposited Rs 2,200 crore in the bank accounts of small farmers of Uttarakhand… When your intentions are right, things work out like this,” the PM said in a recent speech in Rudrapur.

These words will find an echo in Baluni’s campaign as he moves to the next stop.