Polls to four Lok Sabha seats and by-polls to six Assembly constituencies in Himachal Pradesh on June 1 are being fought in unusual political scenario with many awkward firsts this time in the state having literate and aware electorate.
Beginning with the unprecedented rebellion in Congress, leading to the ruling party’s defeat in Rajya Sabha election and disqualification of six rebels from the state assembly for defying the party whip in House--all in just 15 months of rule, the poll battlefield too is hazy this time, with so many unexpected things happening one after another in the run up to polls.
The Congress, which suffered a setback of sorts due to rebellion with all the six joining BJP and then getting the tickets for the by-poll, is now reduced to 34 members in the Assembly of 62 within 15 months of rule. The party is still not out of the mess and has not been able to declare the candidates for two out of four Lok Sabha seats and three out of six Assembly seats, one and a half month after the polls were announced.
Congress sources said there has been so much confusion in the party that in some cases, the high command turned down the names suggested by the state leadership for Lok Sabha cases and in other cases, the Congress leaders refused to contest election.
In Hamirpur, Deputy Chief Minister, Mukesh Agnihotri and his daughter, Aastha Agnihotri, both cited personal reason for not joining the fray for Lok Sabha election, in Kangra, Nagrota MLA showed reluctance in a way, and in Mandi, previous to PWD minister, Vikramaditya Singh, his mother, sitting MP and party president in Himachal, Pratibha Singh said she was not interested. The Congress party ultimately fielded Vikramaditya Singh from Mandi, and Kasauli MLA, Vinod Sultanpuri from Shimla (reserved) seat.
While the Congress party’s stand to field the two MLAs in Lok Sabha election, despite it being the game of numbers in Assembly, has come as a surprise in political circles, the ruling party’s strategy to field ‘imported’ candidates from BJP, Ranjit Singh Rana in Sujanpur and Rakesh Kalia in Gagret, against their own rebels who are contesting on BJP ticket, is not going down well in the political calculations.
More so, because the Congress Chief Minister has laid a scathing attack on party rebels who joined BJP, while alleging ‘money game’ in their move at the behest of BJP.
The Congress leaders, however, call such confusion a normal process in the run to any poll. “This time it looks a bit awkward because by-polls are being held so early, and our candidates of 2022 in six constituencies are contesting on the BJP ticket now. But it will settle down as the names are announced,” shared a senior Congress leader.
The BJP, on the other hand, is not going to leave the issue as such. “The Congress party is not able to even find the candidates for election. What fight will it put up?” said Leader of Opposition and former BJP chief minister, Jai Ram Thakur.
He alleged that the Congress government had failed in governance badly and had not been able to bring any help from the Centre in 15 months of rule because of their own incapability.
Yet, in the current state of politics going haywire in Himachal Pradesh, the BJP too is not all that clean.
While it was more than clear that the Congress party did not try to placate the rebels at the first instance due to intense infighting in the party and the dominant faction of Congress today not interested to approach them due to old issues---the BJP’s intervention of getting hold of rebels and shifting them to Chandigarh in choppers and making them stay there lavishly for more than 20 days, before they formally joined BJP in Delhi and got the ticket, has also not gone well with BJP cadres and the public.
The talk of the town was that the BJP, which has been outrightly trying to destabilize the governments in other parts of the country to grab power and have been successful to an extent, tried the same in Himachal Pradesh and failed so far.
“It seemed as BJP was restive for power within 14 months of Congress rule and wanted to grab power by hook or by crook. But the people of Himachal will reject this kind of politics, which is played with money,” said Chief MinisterS ukhvinder Singh Sukhu.
He is confident that party workers would wholeheartedly work for the candidates, who get Congress tickets.
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