Himachal Pradesh goes to polls in the month of November.While single-phase polling in the state is scheduled for November 4, campaignfever has reached its pinnacle with national leaders like UPA chairperson SoniaGandhi and Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi addressing rallies here.
Leading parties “ Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party “which have both ruled the state have been tirelessly trading charges allthrough the canvassing. If former Congress Chief Minister, Virbhadra Singh whohad to recently resign from the union cabinet on the corruption charges (he isnow contesting the Assembly elections from Shimla Rural constituency), theruling party BJP has also been accused of corruption in land deals and otherissues. Incumbent Chief Minister, PK Dhumal has also been accused of removingsection 118 of the HP Tenancy and Land Reforms Act, thus by bringing privatereal estate players in the state.
However, the highlight of the hustings remains former uniontelecom minister Sukhram. The 84-year-old leader who has been convicted ofcorruption charges in the 1996 telecom scam and has been sentenced to threeyears in jail by the Supreme Court has been avoiding arrest on account of his“old age and ill health”. Surprisingly, Sukhram shows no signs of fatigue whenhe openly campaigns for hours at length for his son Anil Sharma who iscontesting on a Congress ticket from the Mandi assembly segment.
According to a report by the Election Watch, all majorpolitical parties have fielded politicians with criminal backgrounds. Thereport said that as many as 69 of the total 459 candidates contesting theelections have criminal cases pending against them.
That the entire state has performed well on the humandevelopment index (HDI) is not the full picture. If you see the HDI data, sevendistricts of the high-mountain horseshoe region (Chamba, Kinnaur, Kullu, Lahaul& Spiti, Shimla, Sirmaur and Mandi) have been lagging behind on severalparameters. However, none of the parties during their campaigns have said anythingabout development in these backward districts.
Early this year, when the hill state undertook a newpolitical experiment of direct elections in civic bodies, the Shimla municipalcorporation, which went to poll in May, sprang a surprise. Left parties whichnever had any noticeable presence in the city swept both the mayor’s and deputymayor’s seats. The results in mayoral elections in Shimla were not anaberration but a direct fallout of people’s yearning for a politicalalternative. Do people have an alternative in the assembly elections too?
From the national perspective the state may be numericallyinsignificant, but on the issue of corruption, dividing lines between both thebig parties blur. It remains to be seen if the EVMS bleeping on the D-day onNovember 4 will redefine the political discourse here.
In association with Governance Now
