Himachal heads to polls: it's advantage BJP for now

The states of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat went to polls around the same time five years ago. While the BJP retained Gujarat, with then chief minister Narendra Modi winning his third full term hands down, it was demolished in Himachal Pradesh. BJP veteran Prem Kumar Dhumal lost power to the old warhorse of the Congress, Virbhadra Singh.

As the mercury starts to plunge below 10 degree Celsius in the hill state where elections are expected to be held in early November, this time around, the saffron party sees itself within striking distance of the seat of power in Shimla. Chief Minister Singh rubbishes all talk of the BJP having an advantage as mere rhetoric. But the BJP’s optimism derives from its leaders’ perception that they have some inherent advantages that will smooth their way in the assembly polls.

One such advantage is Himachal’s recent election history. No government has been voted back to power since 1992. The Congress and the BJP, the two major parties in the state, have taken turns to form government every five years. Of course, that could change. Neighbouring Punjab, too, showed a similar trend, until the SAD-BJP combine managed to win a second consecutive term in 2012.

Saffron party leaders in Himachal are also confident that the ‘Modi wave’ is still intact and will help the party’s prospects greatly. The ‘non-performance’ of the Congress government and the ‘corruption taint’ attached to Singh are also strong reasons why the BJP leaders are smiling.

The 83-year-old Singh is no political greenhorn. He has dominated the political landscape of the state for nearly six decades. He is banking on what he sees as his government’s good performance in the last five years, dismissing out of hand any talk of a ‘Modi wave’ impacting elections in Himachal and sweeping him away.

The Congress has 36 MLAs in the assembly of 68 seats. The BJP has 26. But Singh has reasons to worry. His equation with his state party chief Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu is at its nadir. Recently, Singh threatened to hang his boots ahead of elections if the party high command did not axe Sukhu. Both he and the rival faction have been to New Delhi and met the central party leaders. The chief minister has since been told that Sukhu will not be removed so close to elections. He hasn’t hung his boots yet, though. Such serious internal strife will likely cost the Congress dear in the coming elections.

Singh wants absolute powers, be it to run the election campaign or decide the party’s nominees. That has put the Congress high command in a quandary. It isn’t willing to risk losing another state to the tantrums of a time-tested Congress loyalist. Party chief Sonia Gandhi is aware that Singh, who had quit as a Union minister in the UPA government ahead of the 2012 assembly elections to return to Himachal, knows the state and its politics like the back of his hand.

But the CM is facing serious corruption charges, including money-laundering and amassing disproportionate assets. In March, the CBI filed a chargesheet against Singh, his wife, and seven others for allegedly accumulating assets of over Rs 10 crore disproportionate to their known sources of income.

Campaign issues

That issue of corruption and the BJP’s charge of a breakdown in law and order in the state are likely to dominate the election campaign. The BJP is also keeping the powder dry to take on the Congress on rising unemployment, failed job creation, and the Singh government’s non-performance. The calm and serene image of the hill state stands ruptured after gruesome incidents like the rape and murder of a minor girl in Shimla.

While Singh will find it hard to defend his own corruption taint as the polls approach, he also has to deal with senior state Congress leaders like Vijay Singh Mankotia as well as his own cabinet colleagues, including Kaul Singh Thakur and G S Bali, who do not share a good rapport with the CM. Their political ambitions have remained stunted with Singh continuing at the helm of affairs.

Worse, there’s the prospect of his son Vikramaditya Singh’s rise. Vikramaditya is currently chief of the state youth Congress wing and senses an easy victory from his father’s bastion, the Shimla Rural seat.

Unlike in Punjab, where the AAP made significant inroads during the recent state elections, Himachal hasn’t seen the emergence of an alternative to the two traditional political parties. Nor is one in sight now. Thus, it’s going to be a straight fight between the BJP and Congress.

Neither party has so far announced its chief ministerial candidate. But there is talk within the BJP that the party might choose a new, relatively young face if it does decide to name a CM candidate. There is also the possibility that the BJP could do a Goa in Himachal. After having come second in Goa, the party pulled former defence minister Manohar Parikkar out of the Union ministry and sent him back to Panaji to quickly cobble a government, beating the Congress to it. Union Health Minister J P Nadda could be the man for Himachal.

That has given Congress a ray of hope because it thinks the talk of Nadda’s return to Himachal will lead to dissent and dissidence in the BJP. Former chief minister Dhumal and his son Anurag Thakur have considerable stakes in Himachal politics and may be averse to any change in the political order.

The BJP leadership is keeping its cards close to the chest. It may decide on the chief ministerial candidate only after the polls, as it did in Haryana when it anointed an RSS favourite and first-time MLA Manohar Lal Khattar chief minister.