Amitabh
Shukla
Prime
Minister Narendra Modi will virtually launch the election campaign of the BJP
in pol- bound Himachal Pradesh with his rally at the historic Ridge in Shimla
on April 27. Though Modi is on a visit to the state to re-launch air
connectivity of the state Capital with New Delhi, his rally would be by and
large a political affair with the PM expected to urge the people to oust the
Virbhadra Singh government in the next elections.
As
all the possible permutations and combinations, along with poll arithmetic is
going in its favour, this is one state which the BJP thinks would go for it
“come what may” in the Assembly polls to be held in December this year.
After
the resounding victory of BJP in Uttarakhand, a little over a month ago, the
party is in an upbeat mood in the neighbouring hill state of Himachal Pradesh.
It is looking at parallels with Uttarakhand and also the same sort of poll
related engineering in which several leaders from the Congress shifted to the
saffron party in the run-up to the polls.
Desertions
may or may not happen in Himachal but what is certain is that a political
churning is going on in the state at a fast pace and there could be several
“surprises” in the next few weeks.
Despite
the assembly poll eight months away, there is hectic political activity,
triggered by the questioning of Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh by the
Enforcement Directorate for nine hours in New Delhi last week. The beleaguered
6-time chief minister, one of the senior most politicians of the country, is
facing a series of probes by multiple central agencies in the election year,
which has sapped the entire political energy of the 82-year old Congress
leader.
Singh,
who remained unscathed in his previous tenure as Union Steel Minister in the
UPA II despite allegations against him, is now finding himself cornered. Almost
everyone in his family has been questioned and his house raided by the tax
authorities on the day when his daughter’s wedding was about to take place. Not
that he himself not try tricks to find dirt in the Opposition. A series of
vigilance cases were lodged against the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association
headed by BJP MP Anurag Thakur. This was primarily done to tarnish the image of
BJP as well as Leader of Opposition Prem Kumar Dhumal. Most of the cases,
however, have fallen flat and little is left of them now.
Consistently
on the backfoot, Congress leaders in Himachal now say that the party would
build its electoral strategy around the “victim card” which the septuagenarian
chief minister would play if any “untoward” incident (read arrest) takes place.
Singh has already given indications of this strategy, charging the NDA
government in the centre of witch hunting its political opponents. Even if he
is not arrested, he will go the people saying how BJP is “unnecessarily
targeting” him and his family, how they raised his house on the day of his
daughter’s wedding and so on and so forth.
Top
BJP brass held a series of meetings in New Delhi with their Himachal
counterparts anticipating that the Congress government would fall either due to
desertions or as some party functionaries said, if the chief minister himself
is arrested. Governor Acharya Devvrat dashed to Delhi and met Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh and others to apprise them of the
latest political developments in the state.
Former
chief minister and Leader of Opposition, Prem Kumar Dhumal too met top brass of
the party in New Delhi to ponder over the next course of action and assess the
ground situation in the poll bound state. Union Health Minister J P Nadda, who
has emerged as the fulcrum around which the BJP politics in the state is
revolving at the moment, also assessed the ground realities of the state in his
meetings with the party leaders from the state.BJP insiders in the state insist
that the state would go their way if normal elections are held later this year
without any wave. They are giving ample hints that if the chief minister is
arrested, this may trigger a sympathy wave ahead of the elections. “This should
be completely avoided and the legal process prolonged,” a party leader said.
In
Himachal Pradesh, power revolves between the BJP and Congress and this has been
going on for the last over three decades. In the last Assembly polls, Congress
won the polls and BJP was a close second.
Even
the Congress sympathizers in the state say that this time, it will be BJP all
the way and they are themselves ruling out the return of the Congress. The only
uncertainty is the fate of Virbhadra Singh. If the central agencies take a
tough stand against him and go to the extent of arresting him, only then the
political arithmetic would change, Congress leaders say.
BJP
won all four seats of the state in the 2014 parliamentary polls by a handsome
margin. The party even won the Mandi parliamentary seat, considered to be the
bastion of the Congress as it was the seat of the wife of the chief minister,
Pratibha Singh, who was contesting against little known RSS worker Ram Swaroop
Sharma. Since then, pro Modi sentiments have dominated the political discourse
and almost everything is going in favour of the party as of now. In the Bhoranj
assembly by poll earlier this month, BJP retained the seat, indicating a
groundswell of support in its favour.
With
Virbhadra Singh being targeted by both the CBI and ED, senior most minister in
his Cabinet, Vidya Stokes came in an attacking mode alleging that the leaders
of BJP had ulterior designs in their minds to destabilize the popular and
elected government at the State but their ill wishes will never be fulfilled.
“The public of the State is well aware of the ill designs of BJP and will not
tolerate any attempt to sabotage the Congress Government,” she said, referring
to three issues—possible desertions, removal of Singh by Congress leadership if
arrested or early elections.
“The
BJP is trying to create vicious atmosphere and issuing ethereal statements just
to create confusion and false atmosphere in wake of visit of Prime Minister, to
the State,” Stokes added.
But
BJP insiders say that their leadership is in touch with Congress dissidents who
are weighing their options and opportunities. “There will be a tectonic shift
in Himachal politics after the visit of the Prime Minister,” a party leader
said. (April 24, 2017)
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