TWO MANY LEADERS
WITH THE BJP CAMP DIVIDED BETWEEN TWO CONTENDERS, THIS TIME IT COULD BE A CLOSE BATTLE WITH THE CONGRESS
EARLY MORNING ON DECEMBER 20, 2012, the day the Himachal Pradesh assembly poll votes were counted, Prem Kumar Dhumal, then the incumbent BJP chief minister, called his ‘good friend’ Narendra Modi in Gandhinagar to wish him luck (counting was under way in Gujarat too), perhaps hoping for some of the ‘Modi Magic’ to rub off on him. But it wasn’t to be. Three hours later, while Modi romped home to a fourth successive term in office, Dhumal prepared to felicitate his arch Congress rival, Virbhadra Singh.
As voters in the hill state prepare to elect its 13th Vidhan Sabha on November 9, the BJP is waiting its ‘turn’ in office. And it’s not an unreasonable expectation, given the alternating Congress-BJP cycle witnessed here since the post-Emergency polls in 1977 when Shanta Kumar trounced the Y.S. Parmar-led Congress to become the first saffron chief minister. Himachalis have never repeated a government since, barring the single exception in 1985, when the Congress replaced the tainted T. Ram Lal with Virbhadra, ahead of the polls.
But the BJP has a problem this time. Unlike earlier assembly elections, where Himachal Pradesh’s 4.9 million voters were reasonably certain of who their chief ministerial choices were, the party is headed into the coming polls without a CM face. This, while the Congress, usually a laggard, went ahead and named Virbhadra its CM candidate well before the announcement of the election schedule on October 12.
BJP insiders say the new, centrally (Delhi) driven election campaign is being calibrated to minimise factionalism in the state unit which, at the moment, continues to be divided between Dhumal and Union health minister Jagat Prakash Nadda—the two big contenders for the top job. By not projecting a CM face, BJP leaders say party chief Amit Shah is also hoping to ensure the wholehearted participation of ex-CM and former Union cabinet minister Shanta Kumar. Given the sway he commands in Kangra (which has 15 of the 68 assembly seats), Kumar’s presence in the campaign could be critical in ensuring a win for the BJP, they say.
So, for Dhumal, it’s not quite going to be the smooth ride from Hamirpur (his home district) to Shimla that he accomplished twice earlier (in 1998 and 2007). And considering that he himself was the surprise wildcard choice that ousted Kumar in 1998, the former CM will have his hands full.
This is because much of the state BJP has been rallying around Nadda, in the belief that he will be anointed the next chief minister. Having started out as a student leader, Nadda made his debut in the state assembly from Bilaspur in 1993. A minister in Dhumal’s cabinet both times, Nadda is said to have developed deep differences with the latter. Which is why he chose to move to Delhi, where Modi inducted him into the Union cabinet in the first 2014 reshuffle. While he is careful about airing
his views in public, Nadda hasn’t been shy about his aspirations of returning to Shimla as CM either. Some of the speculation that this could be Nadda’s turn is also fuelled by the praise the PM and party president have showered on him. Also, Nadda has been a prominent presence at every one of the many visits Modi, Shah and Rajnath Singh have made to Himachal Pradesh.
BESIDES DHUMAL and Nadda, many in the state unit point to party president Shah’s penchant for ‘pulling a rabbit out of the hat’ when it comes to choosing CMs—Manohar Lal Khattar in Haryana; Trivendra Rawat in Uttarakhand; and Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh. Could Himachal Pradesh also witness the emergence of a dark horse CM if the BJP wins?
There’s also a lot of talk about Ajay Jamwal, presently the party’s organising secretary for the northeastern states. Originally from Jogindernagar, Jamwal has been a full-time RSS pracharak and fits the bill for the BJP in more ways than one—he’s a bachelor with a squeaky clean reputation.
With Shah refusing to put out a name, people in the state are also agog over suggestions of Bollywood actor Anupam Kher possibly being picked for the CM’s job. “He is popular and essentially a ‘Shimla boy’,” says a BJP leader, acknowledging that the rumour started after Kher reportedly purchased a house near Jutogh in the Shimla Rural assembly constituency. Although it was widely expected that the actor would be hosted by the BJP to challenge Virbhadra and his son Vikramaditya Singh in the constituency, Kher hasn’t been given the ticket and is unlikely to be a contestant in the polls.
With no chief ministerial face, the BJP is clearly banking once again on “Modiji ka karishma (Modi’s magic),” as state unit president Satpal Singh Satti puts it. The party is also targeting CM Virbhadra, who is facing a CBI court trial for corruption, pertaining from his tenure as Union steel minister during UPA-II. “The BJP’s victory will be historic and will end the rule of mafias in the state,” Dhumal confidently stated the day the Election Commission of India announced the polls.
At Bilaspur, during his October 3 visit to the state, PM Modi had set the tone for the BJP campaign by referring to the incumbent Congress government as a “zamanati sarkar (government on bail)”. It has since become the catch phrase at all BJP poll meetings.
It may be the BJP’s ‘turn’ to rule Himachal Pradesh, but knowing Virbhadra, it won't be the cakewalk the saffron party is hoping for it to be. It is true that the BJP comfortably won the assembly byelection in Bhoranj in April this year, but that was over six months ago. Many analysts say the real impact of demonetisation and the distress amid traders and petty shopkeepers owing to the Goods & Services
COULD HIMACHAL PRADESH ALSO WITNESS THE EMERGENCE OF A DARK HORSE CM IN CASE THE BJP WINS?
Tax (GST) regime, will be seen only now. The party, analysts say, could also face problems in making the corruption taints against Virbhadra stick, with the Congress gearing to raise questions about the windfall gains reportedly made by Jay Amit Shah.
Also, even though the Congress goes to the polls with the burden of five years of anti-incumbency, there’s no denying the fact that these years have possibly also been Virbhadra’s most productive years as chief minister (this is his sixth term). Besides the 70,000 new jobs in the government sector that Rahul Gandhi cited in Mandi when he named Virbhadra the Congress’s CM candidate, the incumbent regime made significant advances in areas like infrastructure, education and health.
“From zero, Himachal Pradesh now has 126 colleges,” says the chief minister. In fact, in just two months before the polls were announced, Virbhadra inaugurated or laid foundations for 10 new colleges, two hydroelectric projects, 100 rural roads and several new bridges— projects worth over Rs 3,000 crore.
It is far too premature for anyone, particularly the BJP top brass, to call this election a done deal. As one observer pointed out, what the recent polls, like the keenly contested municipal elections in Shimla, have shown is that there is no wave either way. That said, at least one BJP supporter in Shimla insists that “people want change and they will have it!” Wishful thinking? Or, perhaps not?