If there is one word that describes Congress government in Himachal Pradesh, it is anti-incumbency. The state government has been unable to deal with the issues of unemployment and providing satisfactory governance in the state, according to political observers, which has weakened the Congress's grip ahead the upcoming assembly elections around 15 months away.
Moreover, the Opposition in the state, BJP, has also trained it's guns on the Congress on the issue of unemployment. As the BJP demanded discussion under Rule 67 (Adjournment Motion), which the Congress resisted. In the Himachal assembly, the Rule 67 governs the process for moving an Adjournment Motion that allows members to interrupt normal proceedings of assembly to debate a sudden, urgent matter of public importance.
BJP legislator Randhir Sharma said the issue was a serious matter and that the government has played a cruel joke with unemployed youth during its tenure of past four years and was running away from discussion. Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri, while hitting back the opposition, asked why the BJP wasted 72 hours on the National Song and National Anthem, if the matter was of such importance.
The saffron camp is seen to be banking on the public discontent on unemployment to corner the Congress politically as well as electorally.
In the 2022 Assembly elections, Congress won 40 of Himachal Pradesh’s 68 seats, against 25 for the BJP, while three seats went to Independents. With 35 being the majority mark in the full House, Congress had a comfortable mandate. But the government soon faced its biggest crisis during the February 2024 Rajya Sabha elections, when six Congress MLAs and three Independents cross-voted for BJP's Harsh Mahajan, defeating the Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
The six Congress MLAs were subsequently disqualified under the anti-defection law after defying the party whip during the earlier Assembly's budget proceedings. Their disqualification reduced Congress's strength from 40 to 34, but also brought the effective strength of the House down from 68 to 62, leaving Congress just above the new majority mark of 32. The Congress, however, consolidated its position in the bypolls, winning four of the six seats vacated by the disqualified MLAs, while the BJP won two.
Recently too, according to sources, a report filed by the state unit in-charge Rajni Patel mentioned the condition of the state under the chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu. "A change in the style of leadership or change in the leadership is required to make gains in the state, if not then the state is in a consistent decline."
"The Congress won't disturb the status quo for now, Sukhu has atleast a dozen of MLAs who are loyal to him and dislodging him would unsettle the party. The strategy of the party would be to go along for now and then before months take a decision that could help it stable the party and the party's politics," a political analyst said.
