Himachal Pradesh would be going to polls later this year. Though it is a small state, the polls in the state gain significance as it happens to be the home turf of the BJP president Jagat Prakash Nadda. The BJP was victorious in four of the five states that went to the polls earlier this year. Now the party is seeking to repeat its home run in Himachal too.
As a prelude to the Vidhan Sabha elections, the Shimla Municipal Corporation would be held in May. The BJP president will himself campaign for the elections of the Shimla Municiapal Coroporation (SMC). He is scheduled to visit the state and do road shows on the 9th, 10th and 11th April. The BJP is in majority in the current civic body. So it might face anti-incumbency. Number of wards in the SMC have also increased this year. Earlier there were 34 wards. From this year there will be 41 wards.
The elections to the civic body were earlier a two party contest between the Congress and BJP. The Left parties had been marginalised to only one seat held by Shelly Sharma from CPI(M). AAP after its victory in Punjab is looking to spread its roots in Himachal as well. The party is holding a rally later this week in Mandi where Arvind Kejriwal and Bhagwant Mann will try to woo the people of the state. The number of people attending the rally would give a fair idea of the kind of response the party is likely to get in the state. They might initially pull in disgruntled leaders from Congress and BJP. They also might try to test waters in the Shimla Municipal Corporation.
For BJP the elections later this year might not be a cakewalk. The party would be facing anti-incumbency in the state. Himachal like Uttarakhand has been a state where the precedence is that people want to change the government after every five years. In the past couple of decades the governments had changed hands between Virbhadra Singh from Congress and Prem Kumar Dhumal BJP. During the last Vidhan Sabha elections Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal was unable to win his Vidhan Sabha seat. The party changed its leadership and Jai Ram Thakur became the chief minister. He has already been announced as the face of the party for the upcoming Vidhan Sabha elections.
The Congress on the other hand has lost its stalwart leader Virbhadra Singh. The party is still trying to project a face that would be acceptable and could lead the party to victory. But that could not be to the advantage of the BJP as Arvind Kejriwal has already announced that AAP would be contesting in all the 68 seats of the Vidhan Sabha. It appears to be the perfect time for the party to gain some ground in the state.
Now after Uttarkhand the BJP would like to repeat the same in Himachal Pradesh. Can BJP regain power in Himachal too?