congress-rebels-face-litmus-test-in-hp-by-polls

By-polls for six Assembly constituencies in Himachal Pradesh on June 1 are a litmus test for the Congress rebels in Himachal Pradesh, who are now contesting on BJP ticket, with the ruling Congress linking their revolt and switch over to BJP to personal ambition and money.

 

Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has gone too loud and has focused his entire campaign against all the six Congress rebels, alleging that the BJP engineered their revolt with ‘money power’.

 

While attacking the BJP for being power-hungry by attempting to defeat the mandate of people unethically in just 14 months, Sukhu has been trying to corner the rebels.

He has tried to indicate to the politically aware voters of HP that these by-polls would decide the direction of future politics in the hill state.

He also questioned whether such people, who impose elections so early due to their ambition and money, should have any say in democracy.

 

“Those who can be sold out should be shown the door. People should defeat all six of them in a way that after the election results come on June 4, no MLA or BJP could gather the courage to indulge in horse-trading,” Sukhu exhorted the voters at a poll rally in Sujanpur in his home district Hamirpur, where Congress rebel Rajinder Rana is contesting on a BJP ticket.

 

Targeting Rana, from where he won as an Independent in 2012 and then on a Congress ticket in 2017 and 2022, Sukhu said, “Rana should be taught a lesson as he was the mastermind for toppling the Congress government in 14 months. He is now playing different tactics. You ask him why this by-poll is being held now, when the people had elected their representative for five years in 2022 December.”

 

In his poll rallies in Dharamshala, the Chief Minister has been bitter about Congress rebel Sudhir Sharma, whom he referred to as ‘sargana’, appealing to the people to defeat him.

 

The BJP is almost silent at this attack by Congress, only reverting that the Congress rebels came to BJP because they were not being given respect in their own party. The Congress rebels, fighting by-polls on the BJP ticket, have been explaining their viewpoint from people’s perspective, albeit in a defensive mode.

 

“We were being insulted and our constituencies were being ignored. The Chief Minister was not doing our work deliberately,” said Rajinder Rana and Sudhir Sharma. They said they had to switch over to BJP because the Congress party had not been fulfilling its promises on sensitive issues like unemployment.

 

Although their entry and candidature from the BJP have confused the party cadres, the Congress rebels in the electoral battlefield are confident that people do understand their situation and will support them.

 

The Congress government first faced a crisis on February 27, when six Congress MLAs- Rajinder Rana (Sujanpur) and Inder Dutt Lakhanpal (Badsar) in Hamirpur, Devinder Bhutto (Kutlehar) and Chaitanya Sharma (Gagret) in Una, Sudhir Sharma (Dharamshala) in Kangra and Ravi Thakur (Lahaul & Spiti)- revolted and crossed voted for BJP nominee, Harsh Mahajan, who had switched over to BJP from Congress party before 2022 Assembly polls. 

 

Mahajan had won the election by draw of lots from Congress candidate, Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

 

In a quick turn of events, the six rebel MLAs were disqualified in just one day on the grounds of defying the party whip in the state Assembly, when the budget had to be passed.

 

The BJP, which has been eyeing power from day one despite being way behind Congress in numbers after it lost the 2022 Assembly election, got the six rebels to join the BJP in a dramatic turn of events in the month of March.

The BJP did not mind giving all of them tickets, ignoring claimants within the party, which included former ministers also.

 

Such a quick fallout of rebellion happened for the first time in Himachal Pradesh.

Sources in Congress do blame the party for not addressing the issues of the rebels on time, yet the step taken by the BJP to grab power by hook or crook in Himachal on the lines of some other states has also become a talking point in the state.

 

With six constituencies out of 68 going to by-polls, Congress at the moment has a strength of 34 in the House of 62.

BJP has 25 MLAs and three are Independents, who have resigned from the Assembly, but their fate hangs in the balance as the matter is still pending in Court.