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Pratibha Chauhan
With AAP’s experiment to venture into Himachal politics failing miserably in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the party chose to stay away from the 2017 Assembly and now, the 2019 parliamentary poll, fearing rejection by voters once again.
AAP had fielded its candidates from all four Lok Sabha seats in 2014 and even managed to rope in Kamal Kanta Batra, mother of Kargil hero Capt Vikram Batra. However, not only did Batra but the other three candidates, too, had to forfeit their security deposits.
As such, AAP, which impressed the voters of the national capital, failed to do so in the hill state. The not so impressive performance of AAP in Punjab Assembly poll probably demoralised the party to try its luck again in Himachal. Initially, AAP had plans to make its appearance in the Assembly poll, especially in districts including Una, Kangra and Solan, bordering Punjab and Haryana, but its dismal performance and complete rejection by voters prevented the party from making a foray into the election area.
Thus the possibility of the contest in Himachal becoming triangular in the true sense was ruled out in the 2017 Assembly poll and now, in the Lok Sabha election. The presence of BSP, SP and CPM has more or less remained a token, with their vote share being restricted to mere 0.75 per cent, 0.28 per cent and 1.75 per cent, respectively in 2014 parliamentary poll.
AAP could poll a mere 2.06 per cent (63,351) of the total votes polled and all its four candidates forfeited their security. Despite being able to rope in Rajan Sushant, a firebrand BJP leader who has been a former minister and three-time MLA from Jawali in Kangra, AAP failed to woo voters and the BJP and Congress got the major vote share.
The performance of the Himachal Vikas Congress (HVC), floated by former Telecommunication Minister Sukh Ram after his expulsion from the Congress in 1998 was far better than the AAP, BSP or SP. Sukh Ram’s political outfit won five Assembly seats, as he himself, Prakash Chaudhary (Balh), Ram Lal Markanda (Lahaul-Spiti), Mansa Ram (Karsog) and Mahender Singh (Dharamspur) won the elections, preventing the Congress from returning to power. He extended support to the BJP in the formation of the government and PK Dhumal became the chief minister of a BJP-HVC combine in 1998. The HVC had polled 9.63 per cent of the votes in 1998 Assembly poll.
However, the hopes of a third force emerging in Himachal to provide an alternative to the BJP and Congress failed, when in the 2003 Assembly poll the HVC vote share plunged to 4.18 per cent, less than half of what it polled in 1998.
The attempts by the BSP to emerge as a third force in the 2007 Assembly poll failed miserably as the party could not win even a single seat. Maj Vijai Singh Mankotia, a former Congress leader, lost the election on the BSP ticket despite being a known and familiar face in Kangra politics.
He was made the state convener of the BSP by party supreme Mayawati, but voters were not enthused and the party’s march into Himachal has since remained only a half-hearted token presence.
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