BJP Fails To Create History In Himachal Pradesh
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2022-12-09 07:50:37
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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
The exit polls were both right and wrong. It was indeed a close fight between the BJP and the Congress in Himachal Pradesh which was evident in the respective vote shares of the two parties. But in the end, the Congress sailed through comfortably to maintain the state's record of never voting for the incumbent. The Congress got 40 seats to the BJP's 25 and here the exits polls were wrong - they had predicted a difference of just 5/6 seats between the two with some giving the advantage to the BJP while others to the Congress. Although the BJP got 43% vote share this time and the Congress 43.9% and the difference was less than 1%, the BJP lost 5.8% votes from 2017 and that proved that there was anti-incumbency at play. The Congress, on the other hand, gained just 2.2% vote share but it was enough to for it to win 19 seats more than 2017 and get a majority.
It is clear that despite a heavy-duty campaign with all star campaigners like Modi, Amit Shah and Yogi Adityanath, the BJP could not successfully ward off anti-incumbency. In this, it was no doubt weighed down by factional fights in the state unit. Then again, since local issues were more at play in the state, unfulfilled promises also played a huge part in the people rejecting the BJP and dashing its hopes of creating history by retaining power. The people were not impressed by the promises of rapid development under a 'double engine' government as they had seen the results in the last five years. Despite Himachal being the home state of BJP president J P Nadda and high profile minister Anurag Thakur, rebellion in the state unit could not be checked and the famed BJP election machinery failed this time.
The Congress capitalized on the anti-incumbency wave and despite running a campaign without any star campaigners (Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi gave the state campaign a miss this time), managed to pip the BJP to the post. The use of Pratibha Singh and asking for votes in the name of late Virbhadra Singh (still hugely popular and respected in the state) worked well for the party. Pratibha Singh is the frontrunner for being chief minister. It was huge comfort for the party to gain a state and increase its footprint. AAP, on the other hand, had given up on the state after the initial energetic campaign to concentrate on Gujarat and the MCD elections. It got just 1.1% vote share and no seats for its efforts. AAP's near withdrawal from campaigning mid way through the campaign also helped the Congress as the opposition votes were not divided.
