As Himachal Assembly polls draw close, Congress, BJP spar over development and corruption

As the dates for the Himachal Pradesh Assembly election draw close, political rhetoric is on the rise, as the BJP tries to wrestle power from the ruling Congress in the state. The polls, which will take place on 9 November, will be fought on several fronts, and the major parties are already trading barbs over issues ranging from employment to the menace of the mining mafia. Here is a brief list of the key political issues the Himachal Pradesh polls are being fought on: Corruption As both BJP and Congress vie to woo voters over the plank of development, the corruption allegations against Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh are BJP’s trump card. [caption id=“attachment_3382312” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] On his maiden trip to Himachal Pradesh, BJP chief Amit Shah stepped up the party’s campaign in the state, claiming that Singh will go down in history as an “example for corruption”, who dented the state’s clean image and has also “destroyed” his family and aides. “Virbhadra Singh has set a unique and unparalleled example as his family and naukars are facing corruption cases, and are out on bail. Is this a good example that he has created in the state where lakhs of tourists visit? What impression do they carry back from Himachal Pradesh? Wherever there is talk of corruption in any state, Virbhadra Singh’s name crops up,”  The Indian Express quoted Shah as saying. The saffron party’s chief ministerial candidate and former chief minister of the state, Prem Kumar Dhumal agrees that corruption is one of the major problems currently plaguing the state. “The main issues are corruption, the law and order situation in the state and the total halt of government works. The state is in a very bad condition. It will take time to bring it on track again,” he said in an interview to The Hindu. Union minister and BJP leader Nitin Gadkari  too, during election rallies in the state, attacked the Nehru-Gandhi family of the Congress over its alleged failure to eradicate poverty and corruption. “The election is not between the BJP and the Congress, but for the future of the people who have suffered due to the corruption of the Congress government,” he said. However, Congress leader Anand Sharma countered the BJP’s attacks by saying, “Mere allegations of corruption against a leader by the Opposition doesn’t make someone corrupt. Many BJP leaders have serious corruption charges against them. How about Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh, whose son’s name had come up in the Panama Papers or the chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan? There are bigger money laundering scams of many BJP leaders. Have they ordered any probe against them?”

The Congress, in its election manifesto for the state, mentions “zero tolerance on corruption and setting up of a grievances commission”.

Development Anand Sharma insisted that instead of corruption, the key issue in the Assembly election this year is development. The Virbhadra Singh-led state government has undertaken a lot of projects in the past five years which will play a major role in these polls, Sharma said, according to The Indian Express. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi told a rally in Mandi that the Himachal model of development was far superior to the Gujarat model. He said that the state government in Shimla is ahead in development indicators as compared to the Gujarat government in the last five years. Shah responded to the claims of development, saying the present government is “ neither competent nor capable ” of ensuring development in Himachal Pradesh.

Criticising Rahul for questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi on development, Shah said, “Forget what the BJP did in the last three years, we will give every account of our development programmes in 2019, but Rahul baba should tell that what his three generations and his party did for the country in the past 70 years.”

Safe drinking water to every household, road connectivity to villages, emergency medical services in rural areas, doubling the income of farmers by 2022, raising compensation for land acquired by the government for developmental projects, social security pension, and free “Chardham Yatra” for senior citizens are some of the features promised by the BJP in their “vision document” released for the Himachal Pradesh polls, according to Financial Express. Moreover, in October,  Modi laid the foundation stone of a Rs 1,350-crore All India Institute of Medical Sciences project. He also laid the foundation stone for an Indian Institute of Information Technology at Una and a steel processing plant in Kangra district.  ANI quoted the prime minister as saying, Centre would invest Rs 15,000 crore for 13 development projects in Himachal Pradesh. The India Today-Axis My India opinion poll indicated that development is the biggest issue in these upcoming polls. Almost 82 percent of the citizens voted for development while seven percent said employment might also be a factor. Mafia menace Addressing rallies in the poll-bound hill state, Shah said the menace of various mafias in the state has slowed down development. “ Himachal has become a land of the mafia with forest mafia, mining mafia, drug mafia, transfer mafia, liquor mafia and land mafia flourishing in the state,” he alleged in Dalhousie and Jwali. He said the people of Himachal Pradesh would want to see the end of corruption and ‘mafia raj’ in the state. This “stigma”, he said, can be removed only if the BJP is voted to power in the state. Modi’s resolve was to provide a clean and responsive government in Himachal and rid the people of the mafia, Shah said. Youth empowerment With the youth accounting for 43 percent of the voter base in Himachal Pradesh, political parties have ensured the issue of youth empowerment features in all speeches.

However, the BJP and Congress have fielded only 10 candidates in total below the age of 40, even though the majority of voters fall in the age group of 18-39 years, Hindustan Times reported.

“All parties promise things before elections but once they come to power, they forget about the youth. The youth is on the mind of politicians only during elections,” the report quoted Harish Verma, a research scholar at Himachal Pradesh University, as saying. The BJP’s election manifesto also lays importance on employment generation . The document says that thrust will be on generation of employment by harnessing tourism potential and developing new tourist circuits. The document also promises abolition of interviews for Class III and Class IV jobs, laptops and free WiFi for students, and job fairs to facilitate unemployed youth. Meanwhile, Congress too has launched a campaign to woo the youth. During his campaign in the state, Rahul said that the Congress government had created 70,000 jobs for the youth over the past five years, compared to only 10,000 jobs by the BJP government in Gujarat in the same period. Anti-incumbency and infighting The ruling Congress is also facing an uphill task in Himachal Pradesh with infighting and anti-incumbency emerging as major challenges to its electoral prospects. Virbhadra Singh had been demanding the removal of state Congress chief Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu, and a worried central leadership of Congress is busy placating its old warhorse who has steered the party in the hill state for several decades PTI reported. With inputs from agencies