Elections to the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly are to be held in December 2022 and the election board has been laid for this. Barring a few exceptions, the politics of Himachal is generally contested between only two parties, Congress and BJP. It can also be said that the division of power is happening between these two parties, but this time the Aam Aadmi Party, excited by the victory of Punjab, is taking Himachal seriously with the intention of climbing the mountain with a broom.
Aam Aadmi Party’s Delhi government cabinet minister Satyendar Jain has been standing in Himachal for months. He has been made in-charge here. AAP’s seriousness can be gauged from the fact that its supremo Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal reached Mandi on 6th April on his first visit to Himachal with Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann. He did a road show and showed his strength.
Congress has joined many well-known faces of BJP by breaking the Aam Aadmi Party. Even though it does not have an effective organization like Punjab right now, but the way the Aam Aadmi Party is going among the public regarding issues like ending corruption, distributing electricity and water free by talking about the Delhi model, definitely BJP. There is panic in the Congress.
It was the assessment of political pundits that the Aam Aadmi Party is doing more damage to the Congress in the state. The Aam Aadmi Party, which had reached the seventh sky after a unilateral victory in the by-elections, had begun to think that it had come to power, on the face of it, the Aam Aadmi Party also drew lines of concern and the Congress, which was divided into many factions, started getting scared.
The atmosphere which seemed to be building in favor of Congress was spoiled by the intervention of Aam Aadmi Party. When the Congress, eager to come to power, grew squabbles and factionalism, the high command played a big bet and made Mandi MP and former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh’s wife Pratibha Singh the state president and put the entire Congress on one platform for the time being.
Now this new development has raised the ears of BJP too. Becoming the President of Pratibha and the intervention of the Aam Aadmi Party seems to be a big challenge for the BJP, which has prepared the morale to come back to power. Since Mandi is the home district of Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur and in the last elections nine BJP got seats from the district. Apart from this, an independent MLA who supported the BJP was elected. Congress could not get even a single seat. In such a situation, maintaining this figure or staying close to it is being seen as a tough challenge for Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur.
Despite the BJP government in the state and Jai Ram Thakur being from Mandi, the BJP lost in the Lok Sabha by-elections, Pratibha Singh’s unexpected victory, it was said that all this sympathy stemmed from the death of former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh. Due to the wave, but the truth is that due to Pratibha becoming the president, factionalism in the Congress has reduced and the enthusiasm among the workers has increased.
This is the reason that if BJP takes lightly to become its president, then it can be a loss deal for it. Pratibha has a good influence in Mandi parliamentary constituency, which has 17 assembly seats. They can make a difference, in such a situation it can be said that the Mandi will become the real battleground for the upcoming assembly elections.