‘No attempt or intention to postpone panchayati raj elections in the state’, said the Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister, Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, on Friday, while adding that providing relief to disaster-affected remains a top priority for his administration.
Taking a jibe at the Leader of the Opposition Jai Ram Thakur, the CM said that “he should not worry about the Panchayat elections" and urged the LoP and HP BJP MPs to "go to Delhi and get Rs 1500 crore announced by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for disaster-hit Himachal".
"Disaster Act has been implemented in the state, and our first priority is to give relief to the affected families whose houses have been damaged," Sukhu said in conversation with the media personnel.
The elections to more than 3,500 gram panchayats in Himachal Pradesh are scheduled from December 2025 to January 2026. The last date for conducting the elections is January 23, and the state election commission has started the process by initiating the preparation of electoral rolls.
Citing "massive damage" from this year's monsoons — including 47 cloudbursts, 98 flash floods, and 148 major landslides — Chief Secretary Sanjay Gupta, on October 9, announced that polls would be postponed. The State Executive Committee decided to hold elections "only after restoration of proper connectivity," noting that 270 people died in rain-related incidents from June to September. Because of the continuous rainfall, the Deputy Commissioners could not reconnect the panchayat roads, the notification cited.
BJP blames the Himachal Pradesh government -
BJP leaders, including Thakur and state party chief Rajiv Bindal, had accused the Congress government of being reluctant to "face people" due to its poor performance and failure to implement its poll promises. According to the BJP, this decision to defer/postpone the polls was a “pre-planned” strategy, which then added that the urban local body polls had also been postponed earlier at the last moment.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Himachal Pradesh State Election Commission suspended nine officials, including panchayat secretaries and inspectors, for failing to prepare voter lists for the elections as per instructions. A show cause notice was also issued to two block development officers to explain "what they were doing and why they did not intervene at the right time".
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