How Dhumal lost to his protégé
For two decades, Prem Kumar Dhumal, 73, the two-time former chief minister, remained the most saleable face of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the hill state of Himachal Pradesh. On Monday, as the party registered a win, Dhumal’s saleability was dented in an ironical twist of fate.
He lost to his one-time protégé, Rajinder Singh Rana of the Congress, from Sujanpur assembly segment.
FACTORS AT WORK
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 Dhumal was fielded since the party thought he was the best bet in the tough constituency.
Though Dhumal enjoys a rapport 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.
MISSING CONNECT
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 Dhumal always ignored Sujanpur when he was CM,” said Arvind Sharma, a political analyst. Dhumal in his last term as CM, Sharma said, had refused to open a sub-division office at Sujanpur, which Rana later brought in the Congress regime.
Dhumal — who was unexpectedly 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 Dhumal, after the results. He added, cautiously, “This not the time to blame anyone, but to introspect.”