It was for the first time that the urban local bodies elections were fought on party symbols and the poll for their Presidents and Vice-Presidents was held directly by the electorate. On the other hand, the Panchayati Raj institutions elections were not fought on party symbols. Though both the BJP and Congress have claimed winning majority of the seats, the BJP’s claims are ostensibly less credible.

Before we go into the factors behind the BJP’s loss of face in the urban areas, and the strategy it adopted for the elections, some basic facts about the polls outcome need to be mentioned.

In the elections to the state’s 48 urban local bodies the Congress bagged 39 posts of president and vice-president as against the BJP’s tally of 38 with the remaining going to “others”. What makes the BJP’s position more embarrassing is the serious setback it has received in its three strongholds of Kangra, the largest and politically most significant district, Hamirpur, Chief Minister’s home district and Solan. The party could secure only three of Kangra’s 14 seats of Presidents and Vice-Presidents while the Congress bagged eight with three going to the others. In Hamirpur, the BJP won three seats as against Congress’s five. Solan also gave it only three with the Congress and others winning six and one.

The BJP setback came despite the party deploying its ministers and MLAs to campaign. In contrast to Assembly polls, the officialdom is more vulnerable to political pressures during the local bodies elections particularly when ministers are involved in the campaigning. Besides this, some other political factors also played an important role in deciding the BJP and Congress’s electoral fate. For instance, shifting to the Centre of former Chief Minister Shanta Kumar who had a strong base in Kangra made the district a rudderless BJP bastion. On the other hand, there was hardly any campaigning in the name of Congress candidates. Its main vote catcher former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh who had also been shifted to the Centre after the party’s defeat in the Assembly elections was conspicuously absent.

The outcome of the local bodies polls needs to be seen in the background of the BJP’s soaring popularity three years ago when it decisively won the Assembly elections and also swept the 2009 Lok Sabha poll winning three of Himachal’s four Lok Sabha seats. The ruling leadership was apparently convinced that the three years performance of the Dhumal ministry had helped the party consolidate its position. It was perhaps also convinced that a decisive win in the local bodies elections would build a favourable atmosphere to ensure party’s victory in 2012 Assembly elections. But the gamble did not pay. The party received a jolt which has raised questions about its government’s three years performance.

The BJP leadership had made development as its main election plank. No doubt, under Dhumal’s three years of Chief Ministership Himachal has secured top developmental rankings in some arenas. .But it would be a folly to deprive the previous Congress and BJP governments the credit of their contributions to achieving these developmental height.

Government’s lapses usually generate anti-incumbency which grows in intensity as elections approach. The BJP’s setback in the local bodies elections reflects the emergence of this phenomenon. Numerous factors are responsible for the growing disenchantment of the people as indicated by the local bodies polls outcome. These include weak financial management, lack of firmness in dealing with the bureaucracy which often leads to delays and faulty implementation of government decisions. Although the opposition’s allegations of wide scale corruption in the state have been denied by the ruling leaders, the recent comments of a Himachal High Court Bench in a case has put the authorities in the dock. The High Court Bench had posed a critical question to the government “on its commitment towards ‘zero-tolerance’ to corruption when officers of doubtful integrity, and having corruption cases pending against them, were resinstated and appointed to plum posts.”

The issue of checking corruption has also acquired worrying dimensions with the state government’s rejection of the Centre’s advice to the states to set up their own Vigilance Commissions on the line of the Central Vigilance Commission. The state government has said “its Vigilance Department and Anti-Corruption Bureau enjoy sufficient powers to investigate cases of corruption and disproportionate assets against government servants and others” One need not comment on how the Vigilance Bureaus of the States have become a tool in the hands of their political masters for carrying out their policies of vendetta against their political opponents. This happened in Punjab during the Capt. Amarinder Singh-led Congress regime and now in the Parkash Singh Badal-led Akali-BJP rule.

The Himachal Pradesh Vigilance Bureau also finds itself in the ‘august’ company of its Punjab brethren. Prem Chand Jain, former vice-president of Ambuja Company and the main witness in the audio CD case against Union Steel Minister Virbhadra Singh has approached the high court with a plea to delete his name from the list of witnesses on the ground that the statement recorded by the State’s Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau in the case was forged.

The foregoing developments call for an introspection by the state’s ruling BJP leadership. In politics over-confidence often boomerangs. Adversity should prompt rulers to take corrective steps to overcome the shortcomings. This is the lesson Himachal politicians, irrespective of their political alignments, should draw from these developments. (IPA Service)