Hoping to create history by repeating its government, something that has not happened in Himachal Pradesh since 1985, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) suffered a major blow in the state assembly polls, counting of the votes for which is underway.
Even as Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, who was the party’s Chief Minister, won his assembly seat, Seraj, by the highest-ever margin of 37,000 votes, nine cabinet ministers including lone woman minister Sraveen Chaudhry headed for a defeat as per the early trends emerging from the counting.
In Mandi, Chief Minister’s home district, the BJP has done extremely well losing just one of 10 assembly seats. Senior cabinet minister Mohinder Singh, who favoured his son Rajat Thakur to contest in his place, got the biggest blow by losing the seat to the Congress.
Former state BJP president Dr Rajeev Bindal also lost the election while Speaker Vipin Singh Parmar (Sulah) got elected to the assembly beside Deputy Speaker Hans Raj in a closely contested election.
What has come as a real blow to the BJP was the presence of 21 party rebels, who contested as independents, three of them getting a clear lead over the rival BJP candidates.
This was the result of the party's decision to change the tickets of 11 sitting MLAs, fielding 19 new faces, denying tickets to one cabinet minister and shifting the constituencies of two ministers, both losing the seats they contested.
One of the rebels, Kripal Parmar, a former Rajya Sabha member, who was also approached by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to withdraw from the contest, declined to oblige the party.
One of the saving grace was the victory of Trilok Jamwal from Bilaspur, the home town of BJP National president J P Nadda despite a rebel querying his pitch.
The BJP had the biggest blow in Kangra, a district known for its importance in the formation of the government. Here two cabinet ministers lost their seats while one independent candidate, Hoshiar Singh, a party rebel won his seat. Kangra has 15 seats of which the BJP won 11 in 2017. The Congress has won 11 this time over four in the previous election.
Singh was elected to the assembly in 2017, also as a rebel later admitted to the BJP but denied a ticket making him contest as an independent.
The chief minister admitted that the presence of rebels was one of the factors contributing to the party's failure to return back to power.
The BJP has given a slogan of “riwaaz badlenge” (changing the custom) as had been the trend in the state. None of the earlier elected governments including those led by popular leaders viz Prem Kumar Dhumal or Virbhadra Singh ever returned to power.
“We made a sincere effort to give political stability to the state as we had drawn major benefits out of double engine government. Our poll preparedness was much better than the Congress and development remained a major agenda. Now we accept the verdict of the people” said the chief minister hinting at the close analysis of the factors.
He doesn’t deny that Congress making the Old Pension scheme a major poll plank went to their benefits. Understandably, Thakur had tried to convince the high command to find a solution to OPS but there was no favourable response.
Even though Prime Minister Narendra Modi had campaigned extensively in the state, invoking his personal appeal to the voters, could not save the party's fortunes.
In one of his poll rallies, Modi reminded the voters that every single vote they cast for lotus, will come to his credit and strengthen him.
The chief minister, however, maintained that the Modi factor did work for the party and their vote share was significantly better than before.
Some political analysts also claim that keeping Prem Kumar Dhumal, former chief minister, out of the contest was a mistake as the party could not get a convincing lead in districts of Hamirpur, Una and Bilaspur, the mid-hills areas.
The apple growers' agitation over GST imposed on the apple packing boxes also caused a blow to the BJP in Shimla district as constituencies like Theog, Jubbal-Kotkhai, Rohru, Shimla (Urban) and Shimla (Rural) impacted its prospects.
The Agniveers and unemployment played a role against the BJP.
The party bid to induct two Congress MLAs and state Congress working president Harsh Mahajan seem to have also boomeranged.
