The hill state of Himachal Pradesh goes to Lok Sabha polls in the last phase on June 1, 2024, amidst political turmoil troubling the ruling Congress in the wake of cross-voting by six Congress MLAs in the Rajya Sabha election on February 27, who were later disqualified from the state Assembly for defying the whip.
While the fate of the six disqualified Congress rebels is yet to be decided in the Supreme Court (though the Election Commission declared the poll date for these six Assembly segments on June 1), nine BJP MLAs in the state have also been served show cause notice by the Speaker of HP Assembly on a complaint against them for breach of privilege and contempt.
Congress MLA from Nahan, Ajay Solanki had filed a complaint that BJP MLAs, including Satpal Singh Satti, Hans Raj, Vipin Parmar, Vinod Kumar, Surinder Shourie, Trilok Jamwal, Inder Dutt Gandhi, Lokender Kumar and Deep Raj created a ruckus and insulted the office of the Speaker with their remarks and conduct on the floor of the House when the budget was being passed.
The BJP MLAs have been asked to furnish their written replies to the matter by March 18, failing which it would be deemed that they have yet to submit and the matter would be decided accordingly. All this is, however, aimed at number game in the state Assembly, it has made the matter politically complex, much to the disadvantage of ruling Congress in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls.
Himachal Pradesh has four Lok Sabha constituencies- Hamirpur, Kangra, Shimla (reserved) and Mandi. Three are currently held by BJP MPs, while the Mandi seat was won by Pratibha Singh, now state Congress President, in a by-poll held after the demise of sitting BJP MP, Ram Swaroop Sharma, in 2021.
The BJP had made a clean sweep on all four seats in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls due to the dominant Modi factor in Himachal Pradesh and in 2019 polls brought a surprising trend wherein BJP candidates had got a massive lead in all the 68 Assembly segments in the state.
The hill state has over 56 lakh voters, with women roughly comprising over 48 per cent.
The BJP has already declared two nominees- sitting MPs, Anurag Thakur from Hamirpur and Suresh Kashyap from Shimla (reserved) for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and has already done much spadework at the booth level under the leadership of state BJP chief Dr Rajiv Bindal.
Whereas the Congress party seems unprepared for the poll battle and is still embroiled in crisis management.
The ruling party saw the worst rebellion during cross-voting in the Rajya Sabha poll, with voices of dissent getting louder against Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.
Sukhu, after that, has neither taken any decision on the candidates nor done anything on the ground for the Lok Sabha polls, with the party chief Pratibha Singh herself speaking like the rebels two weeks ago.
Just as Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu took some damage control measures by adjusting a few more people in the government to placate the ruffled feelings after the episode of rebellion, things don’t seem to be cool for Congress.
However, Congress will now get time to work out better with the poll slated for the last phase in the state.
“The people of Himachal Pradesh will repeat the trend of 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls and give all the four seats from Himachal Pradesh to Prime Minister, Narendra Modi,” said state BJP Chief, Dr Rajiv Bindal. He said the BJP is going to the poll battlefield with great confidence.
“People in the entire country, including Himachal Pradesh, are enthusiastic about having Narendra Modi as Prime Minister for the third consecutive time because of his vision and policies which have taken the country forward at all levels.
In addition to this, the people of Himachal have seen the poor performance of the Congress government in over 14 months of rule, wherein it cheated them by making false guarantees. The Congress government has blatantly forgotten its promise to give employment to the youth,” Bindal told media persons.
CM Sukhu, on the other hand, has gone bitter about the BJP for using money power to trigger rebellion in Congress “They have dhanbal (money power) and we have janbal (people's power). The janbal is always supreme in democracy,” he said.
Sukhu is confident that the people of Himachal Pradesh will back the Congress party in the Lok Sabha polls because the government in 14 months of rule in the state has taken several welfare measures for the marginalised sections and has done a lot of vyavastha parivartan to streamline the systems for the benefit of people in HP, besides fulfilling major poll guarantees in a short period, including those for government employees and women.
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