A warning from Himachal Pradesh

On November 2, after the catastrophic by-election results came out (the BJP, in power in the state, could not win even one of the three Assembly seats and lost the Mandi Lok Sabha seat as well), Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister (CM) and veteran BJP leader Jairam Thakur said inflation and inner-party sabotage were responsible for the defeat.

On November 3, Anurag Thakur, Union minister, top Himachal Pradesh leader from the BJP, and former CM P K Dhumal’s son, contested this. How could the BJP have won by-elections elsewhere in the country if inflation was responsible? The party will have to study the results, he said ominously, and make sure it is on top of its game for the upcoming state elections.

The BJP’s national president and Himachali, J P Nadda, offered no public explanation at all. The matter was not discussed at the party’s national executive, nor was any explanation offered by Jairam Thakur, who attended the national executive virtually.

First, the proportions of the defeat.

In 2019, the BJP, represented by Ram Swaroop Sharma, won the Mandi Lok Sabha seat by a margin of 450,000 votes. Sharma died of Covid-19 complications, leading to a by-election. Mandi is an unusual Lok Sabha seat: It has 17 Assembly constituencies, including the tribal Lahaul and Spiti, and the relatively developed Kullu and Manali. It also has the CM’s constituency, Seraj. In the 2017 Assembly election, the Congress could win only three of the 17. One constituency was won by an independent and the BJP won the rest. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the BJP stayed ahead in each of the Assembly segments.

Cut to 2021. If you slice and dice the same results, the BJP managed to win eight of the 17 constituencies and the Congress won nine. The victory margin of the Congress candidate — former CM Virbhadra Singh’s widow, Pratibha Singh — was slender (under 40,000 votes). But in Assembly constituency after Assembly constituency, the BJP lost ground. Lahul Spiti is represented in the state cabinet by Ram Lal Markanda, who is technical education minister. The BJP stayed behind its rival. Gobind Thakur is also a minister representing Manali. Here too, the party lost ground.

The party lost all three Assembly by-elections. In Jubbal Kotkhai, much to the party’s shame, its candidate lost her deposit (Neelam Saraik couldn’t get the required 16 per cent of the votes cast). A BJP rebel, Chetan Bragata, lost but not before harming the party. The CM had declared publicly that he would be the candidate. But when the BJP announced its list, the official candidate was Ms Saraik.

Is this too much micro analysis? Not really. By-election results encapsulate why parties win and lose elections. If there is infighting and sabotage (according to the CM), it is because the other big Himachal leader in the BJP, P K Dhumal, who was prevented from being the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate by Jairam Thakur midway through the 2017 election campaign, doesn’t really recognise him as a pan-Himachali figure. He does not challenge voters of Kangra, for instance, when they burst out in frustration and resentment, describing Jairam Thakur as CM of Mandi (which is where the CM spends a lot of time, in his constituency Seraj).

But that’s not the only reason for the loss. Many unkept promises on infrastructure development have eroded the BJP’s credibility. For instance, the National Highway from Kiratpur to Manali was to have been made four-lane. The issue has been hanging fire since 2014 but the BJP itself has been opposing this, citing insufficient compensation. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has repeatedly said that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will address the issue. Nothing has happened — but some BJP leaders have made their peace with the NHAI, negotiated a slight change in the alignment of the expansion, and accepted compensation, becoming fabulously weal­thy, while the rest of the farmers who stand to lose their land have been left in the lurch.

This is not to say that there’s been no development at all in Himachal Pradesh in the seven years that the BJP has been in power at the Centre. But progress has been uneven and people can see this. This, in turn, causes resentment.

Anurag Thakur represents the next generation of leaders of Himachal Pradesh. His contribution to growing the party in the state right now is minimal: Why waste time when it is evident to everyone that the BJP is not going to be able to win the next Assembly election? This much is clear: If the BJP doesn’t do something quickly, Anurag Thakur and P K Dhumal will be the ones having a quiet last laugh.