BJP, Congress pull all stops to win Himachal

Will the BJP rewrite victory and come back to power in a swing state, or will the Congress keep the tradition alive of the state booting out the incumbent governments since it has done so from 1985? The answer to the fate of the two political rivals lies in about 30 seats in the state.

These include the 15 seats in Kangra district, 10 in Mandi, and 5 in Chamba. Both parties are pulling all the stops, but there are missteps as well.

Within the BJP, the ticket distribution has caused some heartburn, leading to party president JP Nadda meeting rebels to quell dissent. Leaders from the state said that in the last few days, he has been holding deliberations and meetings at Shimla’s famed British Raj-era Peterhoff building.

“On Thursday, Kullu leader Maheshwar Singh flew down to Shimla at his behest and met him. Singh was fighting as an Independent, but has withdrawn his nomination now,” said a state leader.

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Singh, a former BJP MP, is known to be close to former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee as well as PM Modi. He filed nomination papers after the BJP gave the ticket from the seat to Narottam Thakur.

Apart from that, Nadda also held a meeting with workers at Peterhoff on Thursday, before flying out to Delhi on Friday.

The Congress, on the other hand, has managed the distribution uneventfully and leaders are now managing a handful of rebels, said a leader. However, insiders also said that the workers were boosted by Priyanka Gandhi’s tour plans, which was to extend to eight locations across the state.

“But there is word that she will cut down the original plan to four locations now,” said a leader.

Ramesh K Chauhan, associate professor at the Department of Political Science of Himachal Pradesh University, who is also associated with Lokniti CSDS, said that the importance of the seats in Kangra, Mandi and Chamba, as well as the eight seats of Shimla, stems from the numbers.

“All other districts have 4-5 seats, and these seats account for over 38 seats, which is over half the mandate,” says Chauhan. While Shimla has been a traditional stronghold of the Congress, the BJP holds sway in the Mandi region, he adds.

The BJP now plans to hold a jan sabha across all 68 constituencies simultaneously on October 30. “We will launch our campaign across these locations,” said a leader entrusted with media responsibilities. The campaign tagline “Himachal ki pukaar, phir Bhajpa sarkar” will be publicised, the leader said.

Chargesheet on scams

The Congress, on the other hand, is fielding Pawan Khera to release a “chargesheet” of BJP’s “scams”.

“One of our charges is that they have outsourced jobs. They have spent as much as Rs 153,19,80,030 on the 3,000 employees they have hired. In this amount, Rs 23,09,58,224 is spent on the company who hired them,” said a Congress leader.

But will the swing state choose differently, like Uttarakhand did? Chauhan says it’s hard to say. “Rewriting history is not easy, especially in a state like Himachal. Mass leaders like Virbhadra Singh and PK Dhumal could not do it,” he said.