Himachal Polls: Two political families battle it out in Mandi. Can Sukh Ram's son win?

It is the Assembly constituency of Mandi in Himachal Pradesh that amplifies the dynasty politics at its best. Contesting on this hot seat are the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Anil Sharma who is the son of the former telecom minister Sukh Ram and Champa Thakur who is the daughter of Kaul Singh, a Congress heavyweight and a minister in the Virbhadra Singh government in the state.

Besides being a political hot seat where these dynasty scions are clashing, there is a moot issue that is present. The people of Mandi have always stood for 92-year-old Sukh Ram through the thick and thin of his political career. Will they do so again when his son, who was a minister in the present Virbhadra government, jumped fence over to the BJP just five days before the electoral process?

The BJP played a master-stroke by inducting and fielding Anil Sharma into its fold even as its talk of having a systematic process of screening and identifying candidates for the party ticket flew to the winds. This is being seen as nothing but the hegemony of party president Amit Shah by the common people that also includes BJP supporters.

Anil's induction had triggered a reaction in the party ranks at the local level with several of them airing their protests. Their contention was that they would not take orders from someone whom they had been opposing over the last five years while accusing him of all sorts of things. They had questioned why the party had been unable to field a candidate from the ranks, someone who had worked his way up through sheer hard work.

But the BJP's top leadership had a bigger plan and it seems to be paying off as Mandi district with ten Assembly constituencies, the second largest after Kangra that has 15 seats, is perhaps the only one where the party seems to be quite comfortable.

Star power

The general belief is that it was Bollywood star Salman Khan who had played a role in brokering a deal between the Sukh Ram family and the BJP, thanks to his good relations with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Salman's sister is married to Anil Sharma's son.

The local residents were expecting a Salman Khan road show in the constituency and are pretty upset that this did not happen. This town in Himachal is known for its penchant for Bollywood and fashion.

The Congressmen are seething over Sukh Ram having again 'ditched' the party at the eleventh hour. They are pointing towards the 1998 polls when Sukh Ram had floated the Himachal Vikas Congress (HVC) to join hands with the BJP and help it come into power.

It was just a few months later that his disenchantment with the BJP had started and he had eventually come back home to the Congress even as the BJP government led by Prem Kumar Dhumal had lasted the complete tenure.

“He has never been loyal to anyone. There is no end to his greed for power. His son was a minister in the Virbhadra government. All his work was being done. What else does he want? His pretext of leaving the party on the grounds that he was not getting due respect and was being humiliated is frivolous,” says an angry Kundan Thakur, a one-time close associate of Sukh Ram who had helped the latter form the HVC.

But Sukh Ram still commands a lot of respect even among his rivals. Even those campaigning for the Congress talk about him with respect while expressing their annoyance of his having jumped over to the BJP.

“He always had a lot of potential to work for the constituency and he displayed it while being both a member of the assembly and the parliament. He knows how to make his way up. This region was very remote and people led a very tough life but it was Sukh Ram who made a tremendous contribution in improving the lot of the people. But his greed for power nullifies all that,” acknowledges Kundan.

Sukh Ram has always been at logger heads with Virbhadra who along with his wife Pratibha Singh have also represented this Lok Sabha constituency.

The people of this region always wanted that Sukh Ram lead them as the chief minister but this never happened because of Virbhadra always scuttling any such move.

The issues that dominate these polls are local developmental ones like the building of new roads linking villages, providing parking facilities to the local residents, developing local tourism etc. The locals take pride in its march on the path of development.

“When India did not have shopping malls, we had the first open-air one in the form of Indira Gandhi market,” said a local resident.

The other side

Anil Sharma has been seeking votes in the name of the contribution he made in the development of the constituency.

But his rival is no pushover. She has been cornering him on the grounds of his changing loyalties and lack of vision. Champa is a three-time entrant to the Zilla Parishad and is the present chairperson. She is well versed with the local issues and is having a considerable clout across the constituency, particularly the rural areas.

Her father's image is also adding to her political weight. Her supporters have been quick to point out that after having enjoyed the luxuries of being a minister in the Congress government, Anil is now eying the same in a BJP regime.

Champa is also relying on the anger of the BJP rank and file that has deserted Anil over his candidature by the party.

“None of these two contestants can lay claim to having worked for the development of this constituency alone. It is a face-off contest for the clout of families,” says political observer Piyush Kumar. Mandi remains one of the contests to watch out for.

Edited by Jhinuk Sen