Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu could not anticipate that a Rajya Sabha poll under his watch could turn into a full-fledged ‘Operation Lotus’ of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to topple his government. The nomination of BJP’s candidate Harsh Mahajan should have led to alarm in the party, but the party missed the sign.
In August 2012, when the state assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh were barely three months away, the Congress party replaced the then-Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) President Kaul Singh Thakur to placate party veteran Virbhadra Singh. There were fears of an imminent revolt and a vertical split in the party’s state unit.
Though facing a corruption case registered against him by the then Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by Prem Kumar Dhumal —a political case indeed— Virbhadra had put forward a strong demand to the party either make him chief ministerial candidate or see the party in tatters in the poll-bound state. He threatened to quit all party positions and to also not campaign in the elections. The internal reports suggested that he would soon be joining Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to fight the poll and put up his own candidates.
Haryana-based leader Birender Singh, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary and In-Charge of Congress affairs, understood the gravity of the situation and the potential consequences of Virbhadra’s threat and his ability to turn the tables in Himachal against the Congress. He convinced the then-Congress President Sonia Gandhi and also Ahmed Patel to accept his demand to avert the crisis in the Congress. Thakur, a senior party leader and aspirant for the chief ministerial post, accepted the party’s advice to allow Virbhadra to lead the Congress to polls. The party won and Virbhadra eventually became the CM of Himachal for the sixth time.
Later, Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu, the current Chief Minister of Himachal, was brought in as PCC President. He quit the post under the ‘one person, one post’ rule. The rest is history. Virbhadra and Sukhu worked in an uneasy situation and were never on the same page. Yet the party stayed intact till it staged a comeback to power and also won the Mandi Lok Sabha by-poll in 2021 — a victory that scripted the Congress party’s win in 2022 assembly polls even after Vrbhadra’s death.
Now, 12 years after the Virbhadra-Kaul Singh Thakur episode, the turmoil in the Congress party is threatening to blow off its government formed 14 months back with a generational change. A new and young leadership emerged after leaving behind the shadows of Virbhadra’s era that last 60 years. Till he lived, some of the stalwarts of the party, such as former Union minister Pt Sukh Ram, former Union minister Anand Sharma, and Vidya Stokes could not become the CM of Himachal. The credit goes to Sukhu whose struggle and setbacks became his biggest benefactor to become chief minister.
The turmoil that brewed under him has refused to die down. One key factor remains that things are not the same as they used to be during Virbhadra’s terms. The discontent existed even then but never blew off like this as his political standing and administration kept many things under wraps. While tensions simmered, the episodes were contained without greater fallouts.
Much has changed since then. The first key point remains that Congress in 2022 returned to power not because of any single popular leader as the elections were fought under the collective leadership and on the basis of the 10-point guarantees. Three main faces of the poll were: PCC President Pratibha Singh, state campaign committee chairman Sukhu, and Leader of Opposition Mukesh Agnihotri.
The anti-incumbency against the BJP, its MLAs and the ministers, and the fact that the BJP kept former CM Prem Kumar Dhumal out of the poll fray spoiled the pitch for the ruling party and helped the return of Congress. Sukhu enjoyed the backing of the majority group and also had the blessings of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who had campaigned in the state. He was picked for the chief ministerial post after making two others give up their claims in his favour. The discontent started simmering soon as Sukhu tried to assert his powers and make appointments of his favourites to key posts after ignoring the rest of the lot.
This is the root cause of the ongoing crisis in the Congress. Now, on one hand, the first-time Chief Minister Sukhu faces the challenge to accommodate Virbhadra’s family (the legacy as they call) — PCC chief and one-time CM aspirant Pratibha Singh, Virbhadra’s son and PWD minister Vikramaditya Singh, the PWD minister— and on the other hand, there is the issue of six rebel MLAs already disqualified by the Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania after the cross-voting for the BJP Rajya Sabha candidate Harsh Mahajan.
Sukhu could not anticipate that a Rajya Sabha poll under his watch could turn into a full-fledged ‘Operation Lotus’ to topple his majority government. Even on the day when Harsh Mahajan, a former loyalist of Virbhadra, filed his nomination papers backed by 25 BJP MLAs in the 68-member state assembly, it should have triggered the alarms in the party.
The Congress party’s 40 MLAs with three independents —all BJP rebels of 2022 polls— made Sukhu complement and (over) confident about the BJP not being in a position to wean away any of the Congress MLAs. Even though Independents could be vulnerable, the understanding was that it would not shake up the Congress citadel in any case.
Sukhu told Outlook, “We had some inklings about Independents hobnobbing with the BJP but never thought how six of our MLAs, who had been attending CLP meetings, dinners, and also breakfast early morning with us hours before the voting would switch sides. That shows how the BJP and RSS were able to pull down a majority government via RS cross-voting.”
The party’s high command, which had cleverly got Sonia Gandhi to contest from Rajasthan —a BJP-ruled state instead of Himachal— had some knowledge that a lot of MLAs and cabinet ministers unhappy with Sukhu and his style of working could side with the BJP candidate harsh Mahajan. He had joined the BJP ahead of the 2022 assembly elections and continued to enjoy close proximity with Congress.
Being an old Congress leader, Mahajan’s victory despite the BJP being short of numbers could not have happened without meticulous planning and strategy that involved the party think tanks. A senior central party leader from Delhi was camping in Shimla and was giving final touches to the plans. That took the state’s intelligence agency and Congress by complete surprise even when the rebel MLAs were quickly taken away to Panchkula after the cross-voting was done.
Sukhu has already taken responsibility for losing the Rajya Sabha seat for which noted Supreme Court lawyer Abhishek Mani Singhvi was a candidate. Singhvi could not win even if victory was to be decided by the draw of lots.
The resignation of Vikramaditya Singh was another blow to Congress, which the team of Congress observers comprising Karnataka Deputy CM DK Shivakumar and former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupendra Singh could not fully resolve but they gave temporarily a breather for Sukhu.
The root cause of turmoil and rebellion can be safely traced back to the simmering conflict between Sukhu, Virbhadra’s family, and MLAs, including those who earlier stood by him in his making as chief minister after rejecting the claims of two other contenders — Pratibha Singh and Mukesh Agnihotri, now Deputy Chief Minister.
The shock loss in Himachal during the Rajya Sabha elections looks small when it comes to the issue of how Congress will survive the BJP’s bid to oust the government and the now-disqualified rebels asking for a change of leadership for the survival of the government — a demand the party has refused to address.
There are also rumours about Vikramaditya Singh, who has met the rebels and has camped in Delhi, being in touch with the BJP’s top leadership. This has given adverse signals. He has already changed his social media status as “servant of Himachal” instead of being a PWD minister in the Congress government.
The BJP maintains that Congress has a majority in the assembly and it was just buying time.
“The ruling Congress government is in crisis because of its own follies, internal strife, and growing dissatisfaction of the past 14 months. We are not doing anything. We are just sitting and waiting to see its end any time from now on,” said Jairam Thakur, the Leader of Opposition.
The government facing an inevitable collapse without completing its full five-year tenure raises concerns about political stability in the state which has an established trend of two parties alternating every five years.
The six rebel MLAs are lodged at a luxury hotel at Panchkula and are waiting for the next moves from the BJP and Congress high command which is in a helpless state in trying to avert the powerful BJP gameplan to turn its apple cart in the only Congress-ruled state in North India ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
There is no tall party leader with statewide appeal capable of fixing the derailment and diffusing the crisis even as Sukhu of late has started placating some of the erstwhile Virbadra Singh camp’s MLAs to dole out government positions.
Sukhu tells Outlook, “The six MLAs have fallen in the BJP’s trap. It’s anyone’s guess why they did it and on what terms. The government will last its full five-year term. The unseated MLAs, if they don’t get relief from the court, will have to face people in by-poll on their seats.”
Pratibha Singh’s public statements have increased the party headache despite her initially mellowing down a little in the presence of the central observers.
“It’s shameful for us to lose the Rajya Sabha seat. If the concerns raised by us had been addressed, we would not have seen this crisis. The BJP is organisationally better than the Congress. A lot of things remain to be done in the Congress. It is true that the working of the BJP is better than ours,” said Pratibha.
For the past three days, Sukhu has gone into action mode to release financial benefits of salaries, pensions, and other arrears to employees to earn their goodwill. The poll promise of Rs 1,500 to women in the age group of 18 to 60 years is also being implemented which will retain a liability of Rs 800 crore per month on the exchequer of the cash-strapped government.