Himachal Pradesh polls: From tenders to transfers, how BJP plans to corner Congress on graft

To achieve a ‘Congress_-mukt’_ Bharat, something that Prime Minister Narendra Modi touts as his goal, displacing the Congress party from power in Himachal Pradesh cannot but be a key factor. But that would mean fighting well-entrenched vested interests and unmasking some of his own party’s dubious ones, besides some ‘milking cows’ in the Congress-run establishment, if the BJP succeeds in beating the party at the hustings.

Electorally, these are the days of no-holds-barred political battles and Modi is no stranger to finding the right plank to deal with an opponent. The BJP’s prime thrust in the hill state is corruption under Congress rule and the ‘five demons’ that the BJP will avowedly concentrate its attacks on will be mining, forests, tenders, transfers and drugs. It is these that have flourished during Congress rule, says the wily ace who has a penchant for swaying the masses.

Addressing an election rally in Kangra district on Thursday (where polls are due on 9 November) Modi said the BJP would “rout these demons” if elected to power. Modi should well have learnt his lessons from the experience in neighbouring Punjab, where the Captain Amarinder Singh-led Congress decimated the Akali-BJP combine only a few months ago.

In one of his early ‘Mann Ki Baat’ episodes, Modi had waxed eloquent on the need to control the drug mafia to save Punjab but succumbed to pressure from the Akalis to keep off and paid the price for it. This time around, he has no ‘ally’ to pressurise him. He must act on his instincts if his party wins and redeem his credibility. The electorate today is far too enlightened to be brushed aside summarily.

Zero corruption is what Modi has promised to the State’s voters and any future BJP government would be watched with a hawk eye on that. In his own words, “these mafias are robbing the state of its rich minerals, forests, playing with the future of its youths by way of the drugs racket… tenders are being allotted to ‘bhai-bhatija’ (politicians’ next of kin) and people are having to pay bribes for getting postings of their choice.”

These are potent reasons for an electorate to vote out a government provided the people are convinced that the rival means business and is not voicing pious intentions with no real honest intent.

It is indeed a sad commentary of the nexus between politicians, bureaucrats, contractors and criminals abetted by the police across the board which is wreaking havoc on the environment, heaping untold misery on the people.

Take the mining mafia for instance. Rampur’s Dutt Nagar village has been an active ground for the mafia to such an extent that the local residents are now in panic fearing that Sutlej waters would flood their houses. The illegal mining is affecting not only Dutt Nagar village and its surrounding areas but also National Highway 22 and an ancient temple of Duttatray Swami.

Around 600-metre-deep pits have already been dug by illegal miners. At first, they took off the entire sand cover and on finding no more sand they are now digging out stones.

When the high court intervened a few months ago, the Virbhadra government promised action but the danger still persists. It can hardly be otherwise with politicians having a stake in the illegal mining.

Then there is the forest mafia. Way back in 1986, Kewal Ram Chauhan, a disgruntled former Congress(I) politician facing prosecution on charges of illegal felling and smuggling of timber, had sprung a major surprise by hurling identical charges at Virbhadra Singh, who was then into his first stint as chief minister. If anything, the forest mafia in the state has only grown over the years and today has a very powerful lobby.

More recently, there is a mystery around the death of a 24-year-old forest guard Hoshiar Singh, posted in Katanda forest beat of Mandi district. In a suspected case of murder by the forest mafia, Singh’s body was found hanging upside down from a tree in Seri Katanda area of Mandi district. The case is yet to be solved.

Like many other states, Himachal too has a transfers racket of major proportions. The CBI recently busted a racket in fixing postings and transfers of civilian officials working with the army. Those arrested were a Lieutenant Colonel and a middleman. Another two army officers were named in the racket.

It was reported that officers and middleman arranged transfers for illegal payments via hawala operators. Clearly, the rot has set in well and truly with even the armed forces falling prey to such allurements, jeopardising national security.

It is hardly surprising that with Punjab having such a flourishing business in illegal drugs, some of it spills to Himachal as well. Racketeers are at work in Himachal also, and they make a killing with connivance rampant and the law weak.

Many of these rackets and mafia activities existed during Prem Kumar Dhumal’s earlier BJP rule as well but there has been a quantum jump in Congress’ times. The BJP high command will indeed have to step in if the menace of mafias is to be eradicated or at least contained. There cannot be any half-measures. An all-out war on corruption would have to be resorted to and those shielding the corrupt will need to be unmasked and neutralised with deterrent punishment.

That may sound like a tall order but the BJP has to do it to redeem itself.

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