March 2, 1998

Sukh Ram's 'third force' threatens to cut into Congress votes -- to the advantage of the beleaguered BJP

By Ramesh VInayak

On December 24 last year, when Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh opted for a snap poll after dissolving the state Assembly, he was enthusiastic. He had reason to be: the opposition BJP in the state was faction-ridden and there was a perceptible absence of an anti-incumbency wave against his four-year regime. A month and a half later, as he sweats it out as the lynchpin of the Congress' election campaign for the 65 assembly seats, he appears more like an anxious gambler.

With days left for polling, the electoral equations are proving to be as unpredictable as the hill state's weather. "It's a tough battle," Singh now admits. In 1993, the Congress swept the polls with 52 seats. Now, it is aiming for the bare majority -- 33 seats -- needed to form the government.

What is upsetting the Congress' calculations is the emergence of a "third force", led by Sukh Ram, the scam-tainted former Union communications minister. His fledgling Himachal Vikas Congress (HVC) is contesting 64 assembly and three Lok Sabha seats and is threatening to play the spoilsport by cutting into the Congress vote bank. This coupled with an emerging undercurrent against certain former Congress ministers in the lower Himachal areas has added an element of uncertainty to the plans of the Congress.

Though floated barely six months ago, the HVC ranks have grown swiftly. Singh dismisses the party as "a bubble that will burst soon", but he has been making efforts to pre-empt the HVC's game plan by fielding more than a dozen former Sukh Ram loyalists in his ministry and burying the hatchet with arch foes like former chief minister Ram Lal Thakur and former Speaker Vidya Stokes. The rebel-turned-HVC candidates have the potential to mar the party's chances in at least 15 assembly segments. Even in the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, despite the Congress having polled a record 54.33 per cent votes and won all the four seats, it trailed behind the BJP in 13 assembly segments. While the Congress is now comfortably placed in Shimla, Solan and Sirmour districts -- its traditional bastion, comprising 17 assembly segments -- the main battle is in lower Himachal where regional and caste factors hold the key. Both the BJP and the HVC, in a bid to whip up an anti-establishment wave, are hammering on the old trump card of regional discrimination.

In Kangra, there is a groundswell of public anger against the non-performance of certain former ministers. Voters, it seems, have ticked off Congress candidates by putting up banners with slogans like "Hum aapke hain koun (What do we mean to you?)" and "Vote maang kar sharminda na karen (Don't embarrass us by seeking our votes)". Admits PCC(I) President Sant Ram, who is himself on shaky ground in Baijnath where his aide-turned-HVC candidate Kamlesh Sharma has made the going tough for him: "Those who did not live up to public expectations are facing the people's ire."

However, if there is enough hope for the Congress, it lies in the fact that the BJP, dogged by intense factionalism, is no better off. By allotting tickets on factional grounds, the party, it is believed, is in a bad shape. The BJP high command-brokered truce to make the two warring factions -- one led by state party chief Prem Kumar Dhumal and the other by former chief minister Shanta Kumar -- conduct a joint campaign has come a cropper. With revolt still raging at the grassroots level, undercutting in the BJP vote bank by rival factions has become a distinct possibility.

"Half the battle may have been lost because of wrong ticketing which has kept potential winners out," concedes Kumar. Worse, the last-minute switchover by Dhumal, from Hamirpur parliamentary seat to the safe Bamsan assembly segment, has only betrayed the party's nervousness. Its failure to project a chief ministerial candidate has drawn it the ridicule of being "a marriage party without the bridegroom". A slighted Kumar, the only mass leader who could have enthused the party, is confining himself to Kangra. The party hopes that national leaders who will campaign in the state after February 22, will enthuse the voters. "But that," says Kumar, "would be too late to retrieve lost ground."

In such a scenario, the presence of the HVC has come as a blessing in disguise for the BJP. The common enemy has made the two parties forge a tacit understanding with each other, which analysts say is a forerunner of a likely post-elections tie-up. And contrary to the Congress' calculations, it has not been able to check the growing bond. The corruption issue has failed to click and the party has not been able to checkmate Sukh Ram. In fact, the "telecom revolution" card has provided the former communications minister a fresh lease of political life.

This year's elections in the state will be a litmus test for Sukh Ram's "third force" in a state where politics has always been a two-party affair. Something the once-confident Singh had not bargained for. The Raja of Rampur Bushehar may even manage to form the next government, only this time it won't be a walkover.

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