Winds of change in Himachal?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement on Thursday that “the winds of change are blowing from Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Delhi towards Himachal Pradesh” may not be wide off the mark.

The enthusiasm, the sense of anticipation on the faces and in the body language of the local party leaders and workers indeed amply testifies to his claim. It was as though the party was all set to take over and the leaders were thinking of how to share the spoils!

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Almost invoking the charismatic Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s connect with the Himachalis, Modi made some recollections of his earlier stays in the state (as a party in-charge) which may sound trivial, but could make a deep impress in the small, sparsely populated hill state.

Invariably, such reflections become a talking point for the public, almost overshadowing the real benefits, if any, of such a visit. Indeed there were hardly any such benefits.

The UDAN, the long pending air connectivity for Shimla, is supposed to boost tourism. A 35-seater (half of the seats invariably to be occupied by VIPs and dignitaries who throng to the hills especially in the peak tourist season like summer) may result in around 500 tourists more per month in a city that attracts thousands of tourists ~ 3,000 vehicles a day on an average enter Shimla in the peak season.

While the cost of the flight is pegged at about Rs.2,000 for the first 50 per cent seats, the other half may vary up to Rs.15,000 per seat.

The taxis of Shimla that do not charge by meter may cost anywhere from Rs.2000 to 3000 to and fro to fetch the passengers to the city.

Even so, it is considered as a beginning (Shimla was probably the only state capital without air connectivity in the last five years) of resumption of the Centre’s attention to such problems.

The prime minister, who was received warmly at the airport by Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, reached the historic Ridge Maidan to address a public rally organised by the BJP and decided to drop broad hints of criticism against Singh. In the process, observers feel, he has given a key part of the agenda for the coming assembly poll campaign.

“You have to choose between an honest government and a dishonest one,” he thundered thrice in his speech, mentioning how Virbhadra Singh was “probably the only chief minister who is spending so much time with his lawyers to defend himself in the corruption cases” being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Without taking Singh’s name and asking people, “you know, who it is,” causing cackles among the audience, he again obliquely referred to the chief minister’s “lack of time” to pay attention to governance. Modi was at his relaxed best, enjoying the public address on the familiar turf of Shimla.

It will not come as a surprise if the top BJP leadership arranges advancement of the assembly polls (scheduled towards the end of this winter) to cash in on the recent successes in other states.

The setback in Punjab will not deter them ~ they have already placed the blame at the doorstep of the Badals.

Virbhadra Singh, the Congress leader on whose shoulders the party has ridden all these decades, is at the moment on a rather weak wicket. The man with the maximum emotional connect with the people finds himself defending himself against the ugliest of all strikes against his pride and strength. His anger boils over visibly at the humiliation. Without him, the other Congress leaders (some of whom were secretly hoping that he would be “thrown into the hole” by the investigating agencies) have no leg to stand on in constituencies outside their own.

The BJP’s strategy, therefore, is quite understandable ~ corner him, decimate him and the BJP can hope for over 50 of the 68 assembly seats. Here lies the danger of self-annihilation also for BJP. This was similar to the mistake they made in the last assembly polls (in 2012).

Singh, surrounded by enemies within the party and outside, became a damp cartridge as a steel minister, facing all kinds of hurdles and charges. It was no secret that Sonia Gandhi and her company gave him little weightage and were waiting for a chance to displace him. He himself was indeed a desperate man.

That was a time when the BJP revived a 20-year-old allegation of corruption against him and his wife and started the proceedings.

Singh got a fresh lease of political revival and a wave of public sympathy began gathering for the erstwhile Raja of Rampur Bushehr.

His opponents call it ‘drama’ but his supporters with a divine devotion accepted it. The Dhumal-led BJP government which had nothing much against it (as anti-incumbency) started losing ground. And finally, power too.

The chief minister, who, according to insiders, was within an ace of being arrested in Delhi and was visibly shaken, is capable of drawing a sympathy wave again like in the last assembly polls.

Imagine, the 82-year-old, six time chief minister of the state, who swallows a fistful of medicines at regular intervals for various ailments, spending his days in a prison cell guiding his campaigners in the polls. What a windfall for the Congress! The BJP was (and is) indeed quite capable of a mistake like that. If the height of power does not breed over-calculation and over-confidence, what else can!