The cash strapped tiny hill state of Himachal Pradesh will have its ‘second capital’ at Dharamshala in Kangra district.

Chief Minister, Virbhadra Singh announced this in Dharamshala on Thursday during his winter sojourn.

The move, however, is being taken with a pinch of salt in the state as it comes in the election year and Himachal is too small a state to feel the need of two capitals.

“The government may come out with a notification on Dharamshala as the second capital of HP very soon, wherein we will also get to know the finer details,”Urban Development minister, Sudhir Sharma, who represents Dharamshala assembly constituency, told The Statesman. He hailed the move as a positive step for people of Kangra, Chamba, Una and Hamirpur.

Dharamshala is over 250 kilometres away from the state capital Shimla.

The assembly polls are scheduled by the year end in Himachal.

Kangra district is politically significant district in the state, with 15 assembly segments, and has a trend of tilting the scales in assembly polls.

As the history has it, for last three decades, the state has been witness to the change in government every five years. And the electorate in Kangra has been voting against the ruling party in every poll.

To count from 2007, the BJP had won on 11 out of 16 assembly segments (before delimitation) in Kangra in 2007 polls, but in 2012, Congress turned the tables and emerged victorious on 10 assembly seats, pushing the BJP to three. Two seats were wrested by independents.

Sources in Congress said just to avert the trend of polling against the ruling party in Kangra in 2017 elections, the Chief Minister has tried to play this ‘political masterstroke’.

The state BJP dismissed it as a political stunt. “The Congress has a habit of doing such announcements. But we don’t have to worry. The people of Kangra are politically mature. They very well know what the government has been doing in four years,” said State BJP Chief, Satpal Singh Satti. He said otherwise also, in routine, the Chief Minister of HP goes to lower areas for winter stay every year, be it Cong or BJP government.

The Congress men are happy about the government’s announcement as they find it good to woo the people in Kangra, Chamba, Hamirpur and Una, who would have government sitting at their door step for sometime.

The BJP, however, is a bit jittery as it is unable to oppose it frankly, fearing political fallout.

In his earlier tenure as Chief Minister in 2005, Virbhadra had suddenly decided to have winter session of state assembly in Dharamshala, eyeing political gains in the lower areas. The Congress lost the polls badly after that, but the successive BJP government could not show the guts to reverse the decision.

Resultantly, the cash strapped state is burdened with more than Rs one crore every year for holding few days winter session of the state assembly in Dharamshala. The second capital status to Dharamshala would further put stress on the state exchequer, especially as HP is already in debt trap.