HP CM STRUGGLES TO RETAIN HOLD
LOSING GRIP With assembly elections due in Himachal Pradesh later this year, the leader will have to deal with detractors within the party as well as discontent with governance and law and order
With polls in Himachal Pradesh later this year, the octogenarian leader will have to deal with fighting within the party as well as discontent with governance and
law and order.
This is the most corrupt government. Mafias of different sorts — liquor, forest, mining are ruling the roost in the state. SATPAL SINGH SATTI, state BJP chief
SHIMLA: Veteran of many political upheavals, his ability to fight back has been his biggest strength in a career spanning more than 50 years. But in poll year, chief minister Virbhadra Singh is grappling with his fading charisma and a host of issues.
Personally, he has been facing cases of alleged corruption and disproportionate assets, using which the opposition BJP aims to pin him down. A battle within the Congress in Himachal Pradesh threatens to drown out his stature. And people are seemingly disenchanted with their Raja Sahib — Singh belongs to the erstwhile Rampur Bushar royal family — over governance and law and order. To fight back now and emerge successful will be a Herculean task.
Singh had announced that the upcoming assembly elections later this year would be his last but it will also be the toughest for the octogenarian leader, who has the distinction of being the secondlongest serving chief minister in the country after Sikkim’s Pawan Chamling.
In the last five years, time has seemingly changed for Singh as he faces detractors within his party. State Congress chief Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, who replaced him as party chief five years ago against his wishes, has proven his organisational ability and gradually phased out the chief minister’s loyalists.
However, Congress, which has been in power for most part of the state’s history, still lacks a strong second rung leadership to replace Singh. An attempt was made by a group of legislators, when they tried to move up health minister Kaul Singh Thakur, but it failed.
Singh has in his current term promoted his youngest son Vikramaditya, who now heads the Himachal Pradesh Youth Congress. The move may be seen as his attempt to regain control over the party but it has set off fresh bickering between the factions led by him and Sukhu.
The gang rape and murder of a 16-yearold school girl in Kotkhai’s Hilaila village couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time for the beleaguered chief minister. The ‘botched up’ investigation by police put him in a quandary as opposition BJP and CPI(M) lost no time in steering public anger against the government and police.
Naked pictures, alleged to be of the victim, circulated on social media and the chief minister uploading pictures of four suspects, who later turned out to be clean when police arrested six others, further fuelled public outrage.
The custodial death of a Nepalese in Kotkhai police station aggravated the disenchantment as people took to the streets in Shimla and Kotkhai, the apple heartland that has been a traditional Congress bastion.
Singh came under severe criticism, including from his own party men, over the issue. Half a dozen legislators opened a front against the chief minister, putting his government in the dock. The brewing discontent raised concerns for the Congress high command as it anticipates rebellions like those in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
Speculation is rife in political circles that many dissidents are in touch with the BJP and are looking to switch over ahead of the polls as there is a growing feeling among them that chances of Congress returning back to power is feeble.
In order to quell infighting, Congress deputed AICC general secretary Sushil Kumar Shinde, a former Union minister and two-time Maharashtra chief minister. Shinde tried to strike a balance between the two warring factions and announced that elections would be contested under “a collective leadership”, in a bid to pre-empt trouble in the state unit, which could be exploited by the BJP to topple the government.
Congress, for the time being, has worked out a formula to forge unity among the warring factions, but it remains to be seen how it tackles the infighting that will intensify at the time of ticket distribution.
For BJP, which eyes more than 50 seats in the 68 member house, the graft cases against Singh and his poor governance will provide ammunition for the poll battle.
“This is most corrupt government. Mafias of different sorts — liquor, forest, mining are ruling the roost in the state,” state BJP chief Satpal Singh Satti claimed.