How Dhumal lost to his protégé
DHARAMSHALA:
For two decades, Prem Kumar Dhumal, 73, the two-time former chief minister, remained the most saleable face of the Bharatiya Janata Party (B JP) in the hill state of Him ac hal Pradesh. On Monday, as the party registered a win, D hum al’ s saleability was dented in an ironical twist of fate.
Helosttohisone-timeprotégé, Rajinder Singh Rana of the Congress, from Sujanpur assembly segment.
FACTORSATWORK
But why did he lose? Poll analysts feel there was not just a singular reason, though his own party’s sabotage efforts are being talked about quite openly now.
First, his shifting him from his base Hamirpur assembly segment to Sujanpur was seen as a bad move. And Dhumal is not to blame for that. He remained reluctant, say observers. The party wanted him to shift, despite the fact that Rana had won the seat twice as independent and was now backed by the Congress.
Another theory is that D hum al was fielded since the party though the was the best bet in the tough constituency.
Though D hum al enjoy sara pport among people of Hamirpur, the situation was somehow different in Sujanpur, said a party leader on the condition of anonymity, adding that “at first, the party is to be blamed for this loss”. Also, Rana has built a strong support base in Sujanpur over the years.
MISSINGCONNECT
Rana remains in touch with his electorate while Dhumal being shifted from Hamirpur lacked that local connect. Rana particularly had sway in the villages, where he has performed as a social worker.
And the third factor—a derivative of the above-stated connect — is that Rana was successful in centring the campaign around his own work.
“He was also able to spread a message among people that D humal always ig nor edSuja np ur when he was CM,” said Arvind S harm a, a political analyst. Dhumal in his last term as CM, S harm a said, had refused to open a sub-division office at Sujanpur, which Rana later brought in the Congress regime.
D hum al—who was unexpected ly announced as the CM candidate just ahead of polls—conceded that the party and he failed to “take people of Sujanpur into confidence”. “There must be some shortcomings on our part ,” said D hum al, after the results. He added, cautiously, “This not the time to blame anyone, but to introspect.”