New Delhi: Several claimants to the Chief Minister’s post are lobbying with the AICC following a positive internal survey, but the High Command is adopting a wait-and-watch approach till the Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections results are declared on December 8. According to sources, state unit chief Pratibha Singh, CLP leader Mukesh Agnihotri and campaign committee chief Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu have been meeting several senior leaders over the past few days to lay their claim for the top post.
On November 23, Pratibha Singh, along with her son Vikramaditya Singh, briefed Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge about the state polls. On November 25, she discussed the polls with Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, who is an AICC observer for the Himachal elections, in Delhi. Baghel was in Delhi to attend a pre-budget meeting of Chief Ministers and state Finance Ministers with Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday. On Saturday, Baghel and Kharge discussed the party’s prospects in the hill state ahead of a Steering Committee meeting on December 4, where the Congress chief would review the Gujarat and Himachal polls strategies, along with other pressing issues.
According to sources, the lobbying by the state leaders has been caused by an internal survey, which places the Congress tally in Himachal between 40 and 45 seats. In the 2017 Himachal Pradesh polls, the BJP won 44 out of the total 68 seats while the Congress secured 21 seats. On their part, the AICC managers are happy with the feedback, but do not want to make the party’s excitement public. “The feedback is positive, but we should wait for the official results. An internal survey has excited the state leaders, who are lobbying with the senior leaders in Delhi,” a senior AICC functionary said on condition of anonymity.
According to party insiders, deciding the Chief Ministerial candidate is always a tough exercise in the grand old party. They revealed that through various permutations and combinations are being discussed within the party circles, the decision-making process would depend on the actual numbers. “There are various factors that go into the key decision. If we have a good number of seats over the halfway mark, it is relatively easier to install a Chief Minister. However, if the number of seats is close to the halfway mark, we need to have an aggressive person to keep the flock together,” said an AICC strategist. If the numbers are tight, the opinion of the newly elected MLAs, too, is sought before making a decision, said the sources.
Besides the numbers, the caste factor also needs to be kept in mind while deciding the Chief Ministerial face, said the sources, adding that for the past decades many decades, a Thakur (Rajput) leader was at the helm in the hill state. In fact, the Congress banked heavily on the legacy of nine-term MLA and six-term former Chief Minister the late Virbhadra Singh in its 2022 poll campaign. This was mainly the reason why Virbhadra’s wife Pratibha Singh was named the state unit chief.
However, Sukhwinder Sukhu, a former state unit chief and current campaign chief, and six-time MLA Asha Kumari, who belongs to the Thakur community, may also throw their hat in the ring besides Mukesh Agnihotri, who is the Brahmin face of the party in Himachal, said, party insiders. To deal with the problem of plenty, the grand old party had refrained from naming a Chief Ministerial face before the polls. Instead, AICC in-charge Rajeev Shukla had presented Pratibha Singh, Sukhwinder Sukhu and Mukesh Agnihotri as the "Trimurti" who had been deployed by former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi to win back the hill state.
During the campaign led by AICC in charge of Uttar Pradesh Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the Congress managers highlighted the role of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in carving out the hill state in 1971. In fact, one of the recurring themes of Priyanka’s campaign was that the BJP had neglected the hill state created by Congress to fulfil the local aspirations.
The Congress campaign depended heavily on the various guarantees issued by the party in an attempt to counter the ruling BJP and the AAP, which had tried to get a foothold in the hill state. However, the AAP later shifted its full attention to Gujarat after it did not get the desired response in Himachal.
According to Congress insiders, the party’s positive agenda, a poor track record of the state government, and the BJP’s heavy dependence on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bail out the saffron party did not go unnoticed by the Himachal voters. Polling for the 68-member Himachal Pradesh Assembly was held on November 12. But the people will have to wait for the results till December 8 as the Election Commission would announce the verdict for both Himachal and Gujarat on that day. Polling in Gujarat would take place on December 1 and December 5.
