“We have won the election. It’s time for celebrations. There is a crucial task ahead for us after we form the government, but we are not happy. And the reason is known to all,” said Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who was sent to Shimla as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) observer to select a new leader to head the government after the party’s victory in the 2017 Himachal Pradesh assembly elections.
Even as the BJP won 44 seats —a record in the 68-member house for the BJP, there was embarrassment as well. Chief ministerial candidate Prem Kumar Dhumal — a two-time CM and the tallest BJP leader in the state after Shanta Kumar, had lost from his home district Sujanpur to the first-timer and his own protégé-turned-Congress candidate Rajendra Rana.
It was a new crisis for the party that was on a winning spree across states. Naturally, a search for a new leadership in the hill state began amid lobbying from the Dhumal camp to consider his candidature. Some newly-elected MLAs were quick to offer to vacate their seats to see Dhumal at the CM. Their argument was that Dhumal’s stature and potential to challenge Congress’s tallest leader Virbhadra Singh — a six-time CM.
Nevertheless, BJP veteran Shanta Kumar opposed them and favoured only an elected MLA to head the new government. This necessitated a generational change in the state leadership. The search ended with the Sangh Parivar’s choice of 57-year-old Jai Ram Thakur (then 52), a five-time MLA and former state BJP chief. In promoting the second-line leader and Rajput Thakur to the top post, they even overlooked names like Rajya Sabha member and then Union Health Minister JP Nadda and Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur — Dhumal’s son who was a four-time MP by then.
With Jai Ram Thakur’s first CM term ending this year, he is being projected as the party’s CM face in the forthcoming assembly elections, but the party has been grooming a second-tier leadership over the past five years.
Nadda—rising from his stints as All India Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) chief, MLA, state cabinet minister under Dhumal—has already risen to become the BJP national president. Next to him, Anurag Thakur—a dynast—is seen as a prospective CM face if the party decides to send him back to the state. Others like Indu Goswami, a Rajya Sabha member and former BJP Mahila Morcha chief, are also in line.
Few others with rising stars include Ajay Jamwal, a RSS full-timer from Mandi who is currently working in the Northeast. Newly-elected Rajya Sabha member Dr Sikander Kumar, a Dalit academician, is also someone to be watched closely because of his RSS-connection and caste-tag.
Ahead of the state assembly elections, the real crisis of second-line leadership is in the principal opposition party — the Congress. The party is not only grappling with factionalism, but also a leadership crisis after the demise of Virbhadra Singh.
“The party has failed to nurture a strong second-line leadership and is compelled to fall back upon dynasts, making Virbhadra Singh’s wife Pratibha Singh the state party president. This is almost like the central leadership — Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra,” says a former cabinet minister now in the BJP.
Currently, there is a serious tug of war going on within the party as to who really could make it to the CM candidacy. Virbhadra’s son Vikramaditya Singh —a sitting MLA— is already manoeuvring hard to see her mother as the next CM candidate. She had won the Mandi Lok Sabha bypoll in 2021, encashing on sympathy for her husband who has been the state’s longest-serving CM and a mass leader. The party believes the sympathy factor and political legacy will work in her favour in the next assembly polls. The Congress campaign managers are already working out strategies on these lines.
This, notwithstanding the fact that many staunch Virbhadra loyalists—both sitting and former MLAs—are posing a challenge to hard-sell their own claims. Among the frontrunners is Mukesh Agnihotri, the Leader of the Opposition in the assembly, much to the discomfort of ‘Holly-Lodge’—Virbhadra’s private bungalow.
Agnihotri faces challenge from Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu—a former PCC president. Sukhu—a young Rajput and product of students’ politics, had started his career as a municipal councillor, and consistently worked up the ranks to become NSUI president, Youth Congress chief and now a three-time MLA.
Initially, Sukhu was patronised by Sukh Ram, a former Union communications minister. Later, he worked to carve out his own space, despite Virbhadra trying to dislodge him from the PCC president’s post. Some of Virbhadra’s loyal MLAs have already switched over to Sukhu. The Congress has appointed him chairman of the party’s campaign committee, to put him among the top three contenders along with Pratibha and Agnihotri.
Fearing a serious heartburn among leaders, the Congress doesn’t feel the need to project a second-line leader. In the state’s bipolar politics where there is no regional party, BJP and Congress alternate for power.
Across party lines, dynasty politics has been common in Himachal Pradesh. Son of Dr Y.S. Pamar, a legendary Congress leader and the state’s first CM, entered politics in 1982—a year after Dr Parmar’s death. A low-profile leader and four-time MLA, Parmar could not rise further, mainly because his father-in-law Ram Lal Thakur, a former CM, with whom Virbhadra had an intense, life-long leadership tussle.
In the same lineage was another Congress stalwart Sukh Ram from Mandi. He switched sides between BJP and Congress to ensure that his political legacy survives through his son Anil Sharma, who was a minister with Virbhadra twice, before gaining a portfolio under BJP’s Jai Ram Thakur. Sharma's son Aashray too did a somersault ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, joining Congress. He got a ticket to contest the polls against BJP's Ram Swaroop Sharma but lost badly. This left his father with no choice but to resign from his cabinet post in the BJP government. With Jai Ram Thakur’s shadow lengthening over Mandi politics, Sukh Ram’s legacy is under serious threat, as neither Sharma nor Aashray are BJP favourites any longer.
Former MP Viplove Thakur, Harsh Vardhan Chauhan, Rohit Thakur (grandson of Ram Lal Thakur) and Anita Verma—all Congresspersons— are all in the long list of dynasts from the state. Among BJP’s second-line dynasts, the latest is Chetan Bragta, son of former horticulture minister late Narinder Bragta.
In Uttarakhand, the BJP has a long list of second-line leaders with potential to rise over the state’s horizon. It’s a state which saw change of three CMs within a five-year term that eventually led to the emergence of Pushkar Singh Dhami, 46, in 2021—just months before the elections. He replaced Garhwal leader Tirath Singh Rawat.
When tipped for the CM post, Dhami, a first-time MLA, had worked as OSD to former CM Bhagat Singh Koshyari—now Governor of Maharashtra. He has been made CM for a second time, despite having lost the election to new Congress face Bhuvan Chandra Kapri, 40.
Uttarakhand, carved out of UP in 2000, had seen stalwarts like the Congress’s N.D. Tiwari ruling the state and setting up a strong foundation for its economic development. He was the only CM who completed his full five-year term. Unfortunately, most Congress leaders—both first- and second-lines—either defect to the BJP or remain bogged down in factional fights. Prominent among them are Satpal Maharaj, a former cabinet minister.
Among new dynasts in the Congress are Pritam Singh, MLA and one-time Leader of the Opposition in the assembly, who does not see an eye-to-eye with Harish Rawat, a former CM. Rawat’s daughter Anupama is the new Congress face from Haridwar. Meanwhile, the current Leader of Opposition Yashpal Ayra is a party-hopper who in 2017 joined BJP with his son Sanjiv Arya before returning to the Congress in 2022.
A dominant factor across Uttarakhand and its areas adjoining Uttar Pradesh is the legacy of the Bahugunas. Vijay Bahuguna, son of the legendary Hemawati Nandan Bahuguna, became the state CM in 2012. Today, he is in the BJP. Carrying forward his legacy is his son Saurav Bahuguna—a cabinet minister in the Dhami-led government.
Dynasty politics is no alien to the world of the BJP in the state. Rita Khanduri, daughter of former CM Major-General (Retd.) B.C. Khanduri, is a two-time MLA, becoming the first woman to hold the post of Speaker in the state assembly. She has emerged as second-line leader in a state where the BJP has just returned to power beating anti-incumbency.
In fact, two erstwhile CMs—Bahuguna and Khanduri— also have family ties. Khanduri is a cousin of Bahuguna, whom he defeated in the 1998 parliamentary elections from the Pauri constituency. Long live dynasties.
