Shimla:

Virbhadra Singh, Congress’s tallest leader in Himachal Pradesh and a six-time Chief Minister, breathed his last on July 8, 2021. But the Congress fought the Assembly polls a year a later not in the name of any living leader, but in the name of its dead veteran. There were faultlines, of course. The state Congress was helmed by Virbhadra Singh’s wife Pratibha Singh and leading the party’s campaign committee was Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, a grassroots-level leader and a known critic of the late Chief Minister.

The Congress leadership, however, managed to project a united front and the party won 40 seats out of the 68 in the Assembly, ousting the incumbent BJP.

The bigger challenge, however, was waiting. Pratibha Singh was being seen as a frontrunner for the top post, but the Congress decided to bet on Mr Sukhu. Reluctantly, the mother-son duo of Pratibha Singh and Vikramaditya Singh swallowed defeat. Fourteen months on, as Mr Sukhu fights to save his government after dramatic developments during a Rajya Sabha election, the knives are out. The seeds of discontent sown a year back have borne fruit, with Vikramaditya Singh resigning as minister and accusing the government of Mr Sukhu of disrespecting his father despite the Congress winning the polls in his name.

The Royal Veteran

A scion of the erstwhile royal family of Bushahr, Virbhadra Singh was fondly called Raja Sahib. An alumnus of the prestigious Bishop Cotton School in Shimla and Delhi’s St Stephen’s College, he became a Lok Sabha MP for the first time in 1962. He would get elected to the Lower House of Parliament four more times. Following two stints as a central minister, he became Chief Minister for the first time in 1983. He would go on to occupy the post six times during his long political career. He lost the post in 2017 when the BJP won the state polls and Jairam Thakur took over as the Chief Minister.

Mr Singh’s last years on the political landscape overlapped with Mr Sukhu’s tenure as state Congress chief and there was no love lost between them. So much so that at one point, Mr Singh refused to share stage with Mr Sukhu. The leadership did manage a truce but the acrimony remained.

The Grassroots Leader

The political rise of Mr Sukhu was in stark contrast to that of Mr Singh. Coming from an ordinary family, he started out as an activist of the Congress’s students wing, NSUI. He went on to serve as a councillor in Shimla municipal corporation before being elected to the Assembly for the first time in 2003. A four-time MLA, he took over as state Congress chief in 2019, setting the stage for his rivalry with Virbhadra Singh.

Despite the towering stature of the six-time Chief Minister, Mr Sukhu minced no words in his criticism of the veteran. In fact, in 2019, he hit out at Mr Singh for “blackmailing” the Congress before every election. “Singh considers himself as Congress in Himachal Pradesh. The truth is that time has changed. Congress is strong at the booth level and Singh is not necessary for the Congress to win,” he said.

Congress’s Big Choice

In the aftermath of its 2022 victory, the Congress was faced with a tough choice for the Chief Minister post. It picked Mr Sukhu over Virbhadra Singh’s wife Pratibha or son Vikramaditya Singh. There were reasons for this decision. The BJP’s favourite line of attack on the Grand Old Party is dynasty. In Mr Sukhu, the Congress saw a model party worker who had risen from the grassroots and had administrative experience. Choosing him would blunt the BJP charge, the Congress must have thought. The Congress leader is also known to be close to Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Also, choosing Mr Sukhu helped the Congress put the corruption charges against Virbhadra Singh behind them and closed another line of attack from the BJP.

Another key factor was that the Vibhadra Singh camp did not perform very well in the 2022 polls, depriving them of the political muscle required to clinch the Chief Minister post. 

The Balancing Act

Before the announcement of Mr Sukhu as the high command’s Chief Minister choice, Pratibha Singh was being considered a frontrunner for the top post. When the Congress decided otherwise, it tried a balancing act to prevent a mutiny. The state Congress president post stayed with Pratibha Singh and her son Vikramditya was given a minister’s post. “We accept the decision taken by Congress high command,” she said after the big announcement. Mr Sukhu ruled out any discontent in the Congress ranks following his selection.

A Timely Strike

As the Congress struggled to recover from the Rajya Sabha election stunner pulled off by the BJP, the royals opened up another front. In a press conference this morning, Vikramaditya Singh accused the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government of disrespecting his father and ignoring the voices of MLAs in its 14-month rule. Vikramaditya Singh resigned as minister and said that ball is in the Congress high command’s court. This, after six Congress MLAs cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha election and the BJP claimed that the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government had lost the mandate to stay in power. 

Congress’ Jairam Ramesh has said that the leadership will not shy away from “difficult decisions”. “Individuals are not important, it’s the mandate that we have to respect. All options are open and the party is supreme. We will take whatever decision is required and soon,” he said.

Shimla:

Compounding the Congress’s problems in Himachal Pradesh, state minister Vikramaditya Singh quit as minister this morning after accusing Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu of overlooking MLAs and disrespecting his father and Congress’s tallest leader in the hill state, the late Virbhadra Singh.

This comes amid dramatic developments in Himachal Pradesh over the past 24 hours that turned an election for a single Rajya Sabha seat to the Congress government’s fight for survival. The party, which has 40 MLAs in the 68-member Assembly.

Addressing the media, Mr Singh said the developments in the hill state are a cause for concern. “We need to go into the background and see what led to this situation. I would like to rewind your memory. The 2022 Assembly elections were found and won under the collective leadership of then Leader of Opposition Mukesh Agnihotri, state Congress chief Pratibha Singh and campaign committee head and current Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu. There is no doubt that the polls were fought in the name of former Chief Minister, late Virbhadra Singh. There was no banner or poster that did not have his photo. A day before the polls, a full-page newspaper ad had his photo with the message, ‘Remember me, vote in my name’. This is a matter of record,” he said.

Incidentally, then state Congress chief and Mr Singh’s mother Pratibha was being seen as a frontrunner for the Chief Minister post before the Congress leadership chose Mr Sukhu.

“In the past one year, I have not said a word on the government’s functioning. But it is my responsibility to the people to speak out now. The post is not important for me. What is important is my relationship with the people of Himachal Pradesh, a relationship of trust,” he said.

“The way the government has functioned, the negligence towards MLAs, the drowning of their voices has led us to this point,” he said.

Mr Singh targeted the Congress government over its functioning and fiscal mismanagement. “This was repeatedly raised with the party high command, but they did not react the way they should have. I have always behaved in calling a spade a spade. We raised it on multiple forums, but since I am a disciplined member of the party, I know where to draw the line,” he said.

Mr Singh said the youth of the state backed the Congress. “But are we in a position to fulfil the promises to the youth of the state? That is a question that needs to be thought about,” he said.

The Congress government, which held a comfortable majority till yesterday, faces a crisis after six of its MLAs cross-voted in the contest for the lone Rajya Sabha seat yesterday. The rebel MLAs were whisked away to Haryana yesterday, and the Opposition BJP today claimed that the ruling party had lost the mandate to continue in power.

The cross-voting paved the way for the victory of BJP’s Harsh Mahajan in the Rajya Sabha election after a tie, and then a draw of lots, sealed the fate of Congress pick and senior lawyer Abhishek Singhvi. 

The Congress has now rushed senior leaders Bhupinder Singh Hooda and DK Shivakumar to Himachal for damage control.