THREE TO TANGO

The BJP and the Congress have for long dominated Himachal Pradesh’s bipolar politics. The generational change in both the parties, along with the AAP’s big entry, can redraw the state’s political map 

-  PRATUL SHARMA

TWO DAYS AFTER the Aam Aadmi Party’s massive victory in Punjab, Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain held a celebratory road show in Shimla. Much to the consternation of BJP and Congress supporters, Jain declared that the AAP would contest all seats in the assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh, due in October this year.

The hilly state offers the best chance for the Congress to make up for its poor show in Punjab and Uttarakhand. The BJP, for its part, will try to break the state’s three-decadeold pattern of not re-electing the ruling party. The state’s bipolar polity has alternated between Congress and BJP governments since 1990.

The 2022 elections also mark a departure from previous polls. Virbhadra Singh of the Congress and Prem Kumar Dhumal of the BJP, who had long been the state’s tallest leaders, will not have a face-offthis time. Dhumal fell offthe radar after losing his seat, even as the BJP won the polls in 2017. Virbhadra Singh died last year. The elections this year, therefore, has been billed as a generational change in state politics—one in which new leaders will be tested in the absence of veterans who dominated politics for four decades.

Both parties are looking for a new idiom to mark this change. The BJP, fresh off its victory in four states, hopes that Himachal will go the way of Uttarakhand, where the party made history by winning a second consecutive term. “Himachal Pradesh represents the same thought process,” said Sanjay Tandon, co-in charge of the BJP’s state unit. “We will be re-elected. The BJP has good organisation on the ground. This is our inherent advantage. Our cadres are excited after the results in four states. We are starting meetings with them in all four parliamentary constituencies here.”