Himachal poll: Govt employees hold key with OPS an emotive issue
The govt employee-voter ratio in HP is rather high, and the Congress promise for revival of old pension scheme has struck a chord despite Modi's welfare blitzkrieg
With the Election Commission announcing the date for assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh, political activity in the small hill state is intensifying. The 68 Assembly seats will be going to the polls on November 12, though counting will be done on December 8 — the wait will be almost a month long.
Over 55 lakh eligible people will vote in Himachal Pradesh this time, with 1.86 lakh first-time voters and 1.22 lakh aged 80-plus, according to the Election Commission.
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The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been quite active in the state for the past few months and is striving to buck the trend in Himachal Pradesh of the ruling party never returning to power. The Congress and the BJP (Jan Sangh, in its earlier avatar) have been taking turns in forming the government in the state since it was formed.
AAP fizzles out
As for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which was on a high after winning the neighbouring state of Punjab in March this year, its challenge seems to have fizzled out with party workers leaving it and joining either the BJP or the Congress. Also, the AAP leadership now seems to be concentrating on Gujarat, with the party looking listless and leaderless in Himachal.
In the 2017 Assembly polls, the BJP had won 44 seats while the Congress secured 21 seats and others got three seats.
Going by the ‘incumbent loses’ logic, the Congress will have to work hard to lose this election. A win in Himachal, though a small one in the national context, will go a long way in boosting the morale of the party, which has been losing ground alarmingly to the Modi-Shah-led BJP in the country.
For the BJP, this election is also a matter of prestige, as the party’s national president JP Nadda hails from the state along with Anurag Thakur, a Union minister who has a penchant to remain in the news.
Price rise and unemployment
The saffron party, though, will be hard pressed to continue with its winning ways. As in the rest of the country, price rise and unemployment are red hot issues that are going to have an appreciable bearing on how the people vote.
The people in the state have been long complaining about the surge in fuel and vegetable prices. Add to it the lack of employment avenues, and the discontent among the people is simmering. The only employment that seems to be happening is in the lower ranks of the army and state police. That too has reduced over the years.
To cash in on the simmering discontent, the Congress had even conducted a ‘Yuva Rozgar Yatra’ in the Kangra region – which sends the largest number of MLAs, 15, to the state assembly – in July.
Cong promises revival of OPS
Government employment is much sought after in the state and the votes of employees – along with their families – form one of the major deciding factors in the elections. The government employee-voter ratio in Himachal is one of the highest in the country. It is in view of this that the revival of the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) promised by the Congress – reiterated by Priyanka Gandhi during her visit to the state the day the election date was announced – is striking a chord among the people.
Government employees had been demanding the revival of the OPS and had been holding protest rallies in different parts of the state.
Also read: Cong will restore old pension scheme if voted to power in Himachal: Priyanka
Apart from these, there are local issues that are likely to affect the outcome in various seats. For example, in the apple belt of the state, growers have been agitating on various unresolved issues pertaining to production, marketing and returns of the apple crop. The fall in apple procurement rates this year had led to these agitations.
Similarly, in Mandi district – the home district of Chief Minister Jairam Thakur – people have been protesting against the proposed airport coming up in the Balh area. The Balh Bachao Kisan Sangharsh Samiti has been agitating against the government move to establish an airport in this agriculturally rich valley.
BJP banks on Modi magic
The BJP is hoping to tide over these issues mainly on the back of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity. Modi had already made a couple of high-profile visits to the state just before the elections were announced. He inaugurated the AIIMS at Bilaspur, Nadda’s home turf and, just a day before the EC announced the election, flagged the semi-high speed Vande Bharat train from Delhi to Una.
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Taking a cue from him, the BJP has been claiming that development in the state will be possible only with a ‘double engine’ government. The state government earlier this year had approved 18 project proposals for setting up new industrial enterprises and expanding existing units for a total proposed investment of ₹977 crore and an estimated ’employment potential’ of about 3,793 persons.
The state cabinet, too, had decided to fill up vacant posts under various categories. These included 500 posts of medical officers, 880 posts of community health officers on contract basis and 19 posts of dental medical officers.
How far these decisions, most of them taken during the election year, are going to help the BJP in retaining the state remains to be seen, but clearly it has a lot of ground work to do.
For the Congress, the main obstacle will be to overcome the infighting in the state party unit – especially after the death of Virbhadra Singh – and present a united face in the election.
