Both Congress & BJP racked by dissensions in Himachal Pradesh

Recent election surveys have thrown up surprising conclusions about the Himachal Pradesh elections, due on November 9. The India Today-Axis survey conclusions are that while the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is set to form the government in the state, it is the current Congress incumbent, Virbhadra Singh, who is the most popular chief ministerial candidate.

How could this be? 

Not so hard to understand. For one thing, Singh belongs to Kangra, the region that sends the largest complement of seats to the legislative assembly (16 of the 68). The district also has a quarter of the state’s population. Veteran BJP leader and former chief minister Shanta Kumar belongs to Kangra. In the 2012 state polls, the Congress won 10 seats in Kangra, followed by the BJP at three.

The other districts that have a significant number of Assembly seats are Mandi (10) and Shimla (8). Together they can swing the election for any political party.

The campaign has started. Both the Congress and the BJP are canvassing for themselves, using the accounting motif: While the BJP’s slogan is Hisaab mange Himachal (Himachal seeks accountability), the Congress’s slogan is Jawab dega Himachal (Himachal will respond). Corny as they may sound, the slogans are being discussed widely as part of the election discourse. 

The only thing is, this election represents the shortest-ever campaign period although the Model Code of Conduct will stay in force for the longest stretch ever. While the poll code will remain enforced for 69 days up to December 20 (till the government is formed after results are declared on December 18), parties and candidates will get 12 days for campaigning.

The last date for the withdrawal of nominations was Friday and campaigning will close on November 7.

During the 2012 elections, the code was enforced on October 3, the filing of nominations commenced on October 10, the last date of withdrawal was October 20, while the polling was held on November 4, and 13 days were given for campaigning.

Judging by the difficulty both the Congress and the BJP have had in announcing their list of candidates, a truncated campaign period is probably not such a bad thing. Both parties have been racked by internal squabbles.

While Virbhadra Singh is intensely unpopular in his own party — possibly owing to the fact that he has been around for so long, he has dwarfed the development and growth of a second-generation leadership in the Congress — the BJP is no better. Recently people were witness to a unedifying scrap between former chief minister P K Dhumal’s son Anurag Thakur and chief ministerial hopeful J P Nadda (who has come in for lavish public praise from Prime Minister Narendra Modi at meetings). 

The issue was the location of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), which Thakur insisted must be in his Lok Sabha constituency, Hamirpur. The BJP has individually informed many of its candidates whose names have been finalised. But in some seats, the party has decided to field women candidates, which means edging out a sitting candidate or a hopeful. This has caused extensive heartburn.

How much factionalism and sabotage can damage the outcome is clear from a factoid. In the 2012 Assembly elections, 105 candidates contested as independents and took away 410,393 votes, which were 12.14 per cent of the votes polled. Five independents even won. In the last elections, there was a tough contest in eight Assembly seats in which the victory margin was fewer than 800 votes.

Things are no better in the Congress, which has had extended negotiations, including two rounds of meetings between Virbhadra Singh and Rahul Gandhi to get the right mix of seats. The party faced a setback when Congress veteran Sukh Ram’s son Anil Sharma crossed the floor and joined the BJP. Sukh Ram and his family are a major political force in the Mandi region and never got along with Virbhadra Singh, who will now likely heave a sigh of relief. 

The issues are diffuse. Himachal Pradesh has a very large population of government servants. The primary occupation is agriculture and the politics of setting a purchase price for apples is a major election issue. Farmers say they don’t get a fair price for their fruit and are asking the government to lobby with the Centre to increase the rate of duty on imported apples. Delay in subsidies is another contentious issue, with farmers waiting for relief since their subsidy claims of 2013-14. Like the rest of the country, demonetisation and the goods and services tax (GST) are major poll issues in Himachal Pradesh. 

Cash ban and the tax reform have hit small traders and migrant workers in the state. The traders could tilt the vote in the ruling Congress’s favour as the party continues to target the government on this issue. Former Haryana chief minister B S Hooda (of the Congress) had bookmarked the faulty GST roll-out as the major reason for the travails faced by Himachal Pradesh traders. Development and unemployment are also election issues. The BJP had announced the construction of 61 national highways in the state but alleges that state ministers did nothing to take the plans forward.

The Himachal Pradesh campaign and elections might not draw as much national attention as the one in Gujarat. But for a small state that has had its share of administrative successes (especially in education) and failures (in the employment field), it is an interesting poll exercise to monitor the issues that move people politically.