There is no longer any divide among the voters of Himachal Pradesh which saw merger of some areas from Punjab in 1966 anymore as the two main political parties, Congress and BJP, have been performing well or badly in different areas.
However, call it coincidence or a political strategy, the ‘regional divide’ in political leadership of the hill state has come to stay.
All three Congress CMs in the state, Dr YS Parmar (Sirmaur), Thakur Ram Lal and Virbhadra Singh (Shimla district) have come from old Himachal, while two BJP CMs, Shanta Kumar (Kangra) and Prem Kumar Dhumal (Hamirpur) hail from merged areas.
The hill state was traditionally ruled by Congress party, with Dr YS Parmar from Sirmaur district becoming CM four times in 1952, 1963, 1967 and 1972. The state saw the first non-Congress chief minister, Shanta Kumar, in 1977.
Kumar, a senior BJP leader and former Union minister, headed the Janata Party government then. He became the BJP CM in 1990, when the party came to power in a pre-poll alliance with Janata Dal. Kangra has 15 Assembly segments.
BJP politics saw a transition of sorts in 1998, when Prem Kumar Dhumal, earlier in central politics, got the leadership role in the state and became CM in 1998 (when BJP entered into post-poll alliance with Himachal Vikas Congress to form government) and then in 2007 ~ the first time the BJP came to power in Himachal on its own.
Four time MLA, Dhumal is the chief ministerial candidate of BJP in the 2017 Assembly polls as well.
In the Congress, the leadership has remained in Shimla district after 1977, when Thakur Ram Lal from Jubbal Kotkhai became CM for a few months, taking over from Dr YS Parmar. Ram Lal, who won all the nine elections he contested from Jubbal Kotkhai assembly segment till his death in 2002, was Congress CM again in 1982 for a year, before Virbhadra Singh, then a minister at the Centre, was sent to replace him, mainly because of internal politics.
Since 1983, Singh, who hails from Rampur in Shimla district and has represented Jubbal Kotkhai, R0hroo and then Shimla (rural) Assembly constituencies in Shimla district, has ruled the roost, becoming CM six times. He is in the fray as CM candidate again, this time contesting from Arki segment in Solan district, vacating his constituency Shimla (rural) for his son, Vikramaditya Singh.
Political observers said the Congress party probably strengthened its hold in old Himachal area including Mahasu (upper Shimla), Mandi, Sirmaur, Chamba, Bilaspur districts after 1977, when a non-Congress leadership emerged from merged areas.
“At one point of time, entire Shimla backed the Congress leadership strongly. It even gave rise to the figure (aath or saath – 8 or 60), meaning that if the entire state goes one side, Shimla with its eight Assembly segments stood rock solid with the Congress leadership. But things have changed with time and with Dhumal coming to the fore in BJP. The people in Congress bastion Shimla were upset with former BJP CM, Shanta Kumar during his rule in 1990,” said state BJP vice president, Ganesh Dutt. He said the BJP consolidated its leadership in merged areas, as people in upper and old areas strongly backed Congress leaders.
“It will take some time, but BJP is gradually making a dent in old Himachal also,” Dutt said. The Congress takes it differently.
“It’s not like that. We don’t believe in regionalism in any way. We have been coming to power with strong support of lower areas. The leadership is also not based on any regional considerations for us as all parts of the state are equal,” said state Congress president, Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu. “The younger leadership in Congress has emerged from different parts of Himachal and people will see a lot of change in the party in the years to come,” he hastened to add.