BJP's narrow victory in Shimla casts the die for a tough Himachal Assembly poll battle

If the results of the Shimla Municipal polls are anything to go by, the Himachal Assembly polls promises to be quite a tough one for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP barely managed to emerge as the single-largest party in the Shimla Municipal Corporation (SMC) winning 17 of the 34 seats. The Congress won 12 seats while one was won by the CPI(M).

The remaining four seats were won by Independents.

The BJP is expected to touch the golden 18-seat mark as one of the winning independents is said to be a staunch BJP supporter.

The Congress claims to have the support of two independents. This is for the first time that the BJP will be ruling the SMC in its history if it touches the 18-seat mark.

Since the SMC polls were being seen as an indicator for the forthcoming state assembly polls slated for later this year, despite the BJP talking about a 50-plus seat target out of total 68, the message that has gone out loud and clear is that it will not be a smooth sailing for the party.

The polls were not contested on party symbols. Only 58% of the around 90,000 electorate had exercised their right to franchise.

There were 50 women out of the total 126 candidates in the fray and 19 of them emerged victorious. A total of 17 seats, including three for scheduled caste candidates, were reserved for women. Three seats were reserved for men from scheduled castes and the remaining 14 seats were unreserved. The post of the mayor has been reserved for scheduled caste.

The BJP had supported candidates on all 34 seats while the Congress had done so for 27. The CPI(M) had supported 22 candidates.

Unlike the last occasion when the mayor and the deputy mayor had been elected directly, this time the SMC will revert to the traditional practice of indirect elections.

Last time, in quite a shocker, CPM candidates had got elected to these top two posts.

Shimla results sends a strong message as it did not turn out to be a BJP sweep as was being claimed.

The party workers had been going across saying that the SMC polls were the 'semi-finals' to the forthcoming state assembly polls.

Tough battles

The SMC polls were a high profile affair as the BJP had fielded a battery of top state leadership to campaign on the ground.

Right from the state unit chief Sat Pal Satti to former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, former cabinet minister Rajeev Bindal and Union Health Minister JP Nadda had been in the state capital trying to galvanise support for the BJP supported candidate.

People say that they ran a negative campaign targeting state chief minister Virbhadra Singh along with the CPI (M)'s Mayor Sanjay Chauhan and his deputy Tikendar Panwar.

Both the Congress and the CPM were held responsible for the water woes and failing to get Shimla onto the list of Smart Cities in India.

It was towards the fag end of the campaign that both Virbhadra and Congress president Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu joined hands to campaign for the Congress candidates.

The two were reportedly asked to bury the hatchet in their ongoing war within the Congress by the party high command. Observers say that had they, particularly Virbhadra, not got down to campaign, the BJP could have won around 25 seats.

“This also infers that Virbhadra still has a strong presence among the electorate and is capable of testing the BJP's might individually. These elections were also being portrayed as a choice between the personality of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which is being projected in a larger than life manner after his rally at the Ridge in April, and that of Virbhadra who is still seen as the most popular leader at present in the state with a strong connect with the people. It is clearly evident that in this fight of personalities Virbhadra has been able to check the aura of Modi being created by the BJP,” said a senior media person in Shimla.

Troubles within

At the same time, it is also being alleged that the infighting in the Congress has also taken its toll. But this is being said about the BJP also as observers point out that the party was promoting Nadda over Dhumal during the campaign and it was only towards the end that Dhumal had got down to campaigning seriously, that too on the last day.

The main issues that dominated the campaign during these polls were the continuing water woes and the 'mismanagement' during last winter's snowfall that had seen the state capital reeling without water and power supply for more than a week.

In addition to this, were the other issues that have been plaguing the majority of the cities in the country in the shape of waste management, shortage of parking spaces etc.

The CPI(M)'s claims of having addressed the water issues by having created Greater Shimla Water and Sewerage Authority, and in particular having addressed important concerns like running clean public toilets did not catch the fancy of the voters. In fact, the tally of the party fell from three in 2012 polls to one this time.

Accepting the verdict the party said in a statement –

“The verdict, however, is fractured with no clear majority for a single party. The CPI (M) could win one Summer Hill seat and in over six seats it stood second. The performance of the previous election could not be matched as the last election saw a direct vote for the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor along with the respective councillors. The results are not very encouraging for the party and the CPI (M) will introspect and work in the direction of improving its relations with the people and build movements on issues pertaining to them.”

The BJP has termed the Congress loss as the individual loss of Virbhadra and Sukhu.

Party leader Bindal said, “ The results indicate that the end of the Congress is quite near because Shimla has always been seen as a Congress stronghold.”