With voting for 68 assembly seats to the hilly state of Himachal Pradesh tomorrow, November 12, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) finds itself in a dead heat with the Congress party, if the mood in Shimla and pollsters are any indication. Though, many observers believe that BJP knows how to win even a lost election, but the mood in the ruling party is one of nervousness and the leaders and the workers are scrambling to get their act together.
The endeavor to lend strength to the party began with the recent hectic trips of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the state. Sensing growing anti-incumbency against the state government and deep resentment towards ticket distribution, PM Modi decided to limit the damage to the party. In a speech at Solan, he said that the people of the state have to ignore the candidate and remember only the lotus election symbol and believe that the “ Modiji has come to you”.
Though this assertion is not unusual, as the party relies a lot on the charisma of PM Modi ever since BJP came to power in 2014 at the center, but by suggesting it in so many words that whoever gets elected by the voters is irrelevant and largely a formality, he may have crossed a Rubicon of sorts where he makes it clear that whoever wins on the BJP ticket- the state will be run by him and the Centre.
Why did the PM have to take this extraordinary step of asking the voters to ignore the identity of their candidates and vote for him and the election symbol? Besides some surveys that show the BJP and the Congress in a neck and neck race, what is worrying for the ruling party is the ruling arrangement, which includes a colorless Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur and a party that is losing steam. This is despite the fact that the party President J P Nadda and a central minister, Anurag Thakur, are deeply invested in the state. Also, Prime Minister Modi, who spent some years of his political exile in Shimla also takes a keen interest in the politics of this hill state.
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Being a largely upper caste state, the party leadership has made announcements that it hopes will consolidate the Hindu base. Similar to the state of Uttarakhand, the party promises to implement the Uniform Civil Code in the state if voted to power. Here the UCC is not much of an issue, but the party leadership feels that a step like this would burnish its credentials as the Hindu nationalist party. Pertinently, the party leadership has been leveraging its work in sprucing up temples and how it proposes to reclaim contentious temples that are mired in different courts of the country. PM Modi also spent a lot of time visiting temples to project himself as a keeper and protector of the Hindu faith.
The party leadership hopes that these exertions will help in offsetting whatever fall might have happened in its popularity due to spiraling prices, loss of jobs and in fact according to an agency that tracks economy, the unemployment is particularly high in HP. One of the reasons is the failure of the central government to recruit young men for the defense forces for more than 2 years. Every year about 5000 youth join the army that means that about 10,000 have been denied a job with defense forces. These do not include the usual inflow from the state to the para military forces like CISF. There is a freeze in other government jobs also.
Congress party, which has also doing its bit of temple hopping realizing that in Himachal Pradesh, religiosity matters has been trying to rake up local issues to rebuild its case. Priyanka has highlighted the number of government jobs that have not filled up and other leaders of the party are raising the explosive issue of Old age pension scheme. Due to the nature of its demographics, this has become quite a potent issue as government employees have an influence over policy making. There are about 2.5 lakhs retired and about 2 lakhs serving employee in the state. In a smaller electorate of 55 lakhs, these employees and their demands carry a lot of weight on the politics of the state. Although anecdotal, nearly every household has someone working with central or state government allowing the families to access the various government schemes.
It is due to the strong voice of this section of the population, the demand for OPS (Old Pension Scheme) has acquired an intensity that has put the BJP on the defensive. Interestingly, the state government’s claims that it did a great job of free vaccinations for the state’s population against the Covid-19 pandemic, but it is not washing with people as it is also perceived as the cause for much of the state’s misery. Since the last two years, HP has seen tourism fall with many hotel owners on the verge of shutting down their businesses. Though the economy has begun to revive, but it has not reached the pre-pandemic level.
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When the elections were announced a few months ago, the Aam Admi Party (AAP) wanted to do a Punjab on the Congress, but strangely it has retreated into relative oblivion. Now not many talk about the party or its likely impact in the coming elections. Earlier the belief was that their presence could result in a triangular contest and hurt the Congress. It remains to be seen whether AAP will measure upto any expectation.
Although some 400 odd candidates are contesting in 68 assembly seats, but the contest is likely to be bipolar with the BJP directly taking on the Congress. It’s the bipolarity of the contest that is giving meaning to a rudderless party. As elucidated above, the Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi and Sachin Pilot are leading the charge against the BJP and are hoping that the voters of the state live up to the form and vote out the ruling party as they do with all incumbents. And by the look of it, they have not done badly.
Gandhi’s rallies have been well attended and she has been aggressive in attacking the centre and the state government. Her reputation as a campaigner, now, rests on how the party performs in HP. She manfully chose to carry the burden of steering the campaign in the absence of her brother, Rahul Gandhi, who is on a 3,700 kilometer long Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY). What is really bewildering for many pollsters is why Rahul chose to skip the state? According to a pollster who is tracking his movement from HP, “ his popularity has soared in Himachal due to the Bharat Jodo yatra” as it found multiple mentions during the election rallies including that of Priyanka.
Also, this is the first election that is being fought under the newly elected party President, Mallikarjun Kharge, who has ensured that there is a collective leadership heading the campaign. This includes even disgruntled Congress leaders like Anand Sharma to step out and campaign for the party. Despite the opinion polls and excitement in the opposition parties about the prospects of an upset in Shimla, BJP can overturn existing precedents and expectations of some pollsters.
