Efforts are afoot to create a political alternative in Himachal Pradesh that can take on the deep-seated two-party bipolarity in the state, a little over a year before assembly polls are held. Ram Lal Markanda, a former BJP minister who was expelled from the party in 2024, said he has been meeting leaders from various parties, including those who feel sidelined in the Congress and BJP, and that a new party may be launched in March-April next year.
"We were just waiting for the panchayat poll results and now talks with senior leaders would resume," he told the media on Sunday.
"Senior leaders and workers of both the BJP and Congress who come to power alternately are feeling sidelined and suffocated, making it necessary for a new party that ensures respect for senior leaders and welfare of the general public," claimed Markanda, a former MLA representing the Lahaul and Spiti constituency.
Markanda was expelled from the BJP after he contested the 2024 assembly by-election from Lahaul and Spiti as an Independent.
"The party should be launched early so that leaders get time for spadework in their respective assembly constituencies and serious leaders should be taken," said a senior Congress leader who was involved in the discussions.
"Launching a party at the last minute and taking candidates who have been denied tickets by the BJP and the Congress has not worked well in the past," the leader said.
Another veteran BJP leader said, "Talks are on and we are exploring all possibilities." Markanda said the new party is expected to be launched in March-April next year.
Responding to the buzz of a new party in March, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu remarked that a "third front" has been formed several times in the past, and its possibility has always existed in the state. Suggesting such a development would hamper Congress' rivals, he said the BJP is "divided into factions".
Markanda, however, claimed Sukhu wants to decimate the supporters of former CM Virbhadra Singh, who have a strong presence within the state unit of the Congress.
Moreover, the central leadership of the BJP has sidelined several old and seasoned leaders and replaced them by giving tickets to Congress turncoats who joined the BJP, he said. Ravi Thakur who won the Lahaul and Spiti seat against Markanda in the 2022 assembly polls on a Congress ticket, was the BJP's nominee for the bypolls in 2024 after he switched parties. Thakur and Markanda, who contested independently, lost to the Congress candidate.
Thakur was among six sitting Congress MLAs who along with three Independents voted in favour of BJP candidate, Harsh Mahajan, in the Rajya Sabha polls in February 2024.
They were disqualified by the speaker but later given tickets by the BJP in the 2024 by-elections, causing resentment among other BJP leaders.
"Ideology has taken a back seat and winning elections at any cost has become the rule of the day. But we are looking for suitable winning candidates before registering a new party and thereafter the manifesto," Markanda said.
"With focus on employment and development, we would approach people with solutions and show them that the state could be made self-sufficient by generating additional revenue from mining, forest, water, electricity and health," he added.
The emergence of a third front is not new in the state, and has been experimented with many times. But since the faces of the fronts have always been Congress and BJP dissidents, they have always been susceptible to joining one of the two parties.
After expulsion from the Congress in 1997, former Union communication minister Sukhram formed the Himachal Vikas Congress, which won five seats in the 1998 assembly polls but after a humbling defeat in the 2003 state polls, the party merged with the Congress again.
In 2012, BJP dissidents led by the scion of the erstwhile Kullu royal family and former state BJP president Maheshwar Singh formed the Himachal Lokhit Party (HLP), which won only one seat and later merged with the BJP.
Congress dissident and former minister Vijay Singh Mankotia joined the Janata Dal ahead of the 1990 assembly polls. Janata Dal forged an alliance with the BJP in the 1990 assembly polls and won eleven seats but later nine elected MLAs joined the Congress.
Former speaker Thakur Sen Negi formed the Lok Raj Party in 1970 but it could win only two seats in the 1972 assembly polls, and later Negi joined Congress ahead of the 1977 polls.
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