Cong sweeps saffron out of Shimla

With just four seats in the Lok Sabha, Himachal Pradesh may have attracted a disproportionate response but the psychological impact of the BJP’s defeat on the two parties in the run-up to the next round of assembly elections, leading to the general elections, cannot be underestimated.

The Congress, of course, will finally be able to rid itself of the ghosts of Gujarat. But for the BJP, its inability to perform a hat-trick — after Goa and Gujarat — shows both its extreme vulnerability on the key issue of good governance and its failure to overcome chronic infighting.

The party had itself billed Himachal as a big event by fielding its top guns, led by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Deputy PM L K Advani, and the its Gujarat hero, Narendra Modi, for campaigning. Both Vajpayee and Advani dangled ‘‘central assistance’’ as a carrot to woo the voters. Looking out from posters, Vajpayee had made a straight and simple appeal: ‘‘Tum mujhe Dhumal do, main tumhe vikas doonga’’ (You give me Dhumal, I’ll give you development). The voters heard him and gave Dhumal up.

Using the PM’s Himachal connection, much was made of the fact that Rs 1700-crore central assistance had been given to the state in the past five years. But this ploy was, perhaps, inherently flawed and actually backfired on the BJP. Voters and opposition campaigners were provoked to ask: ‘‘Where has all the money gone?’’ It was an indictment of a corrupt administration.

The BJP rout was complete with Speaker Gulab Singh Thakur and five cabinet ministers, besides BJP state chief Jai Kishan Sharma, biting the dust.

The implications of this defeat are manifold: it has once again shown that when it comes to opinion on governance, the BJP — despite its famed cadre base — is unable to shake off the anti-incumbency factor. It also reduced all that talk of ‘‘a party with a difference’’ to so much rhetoric — factional feuds, corruption and nepotism have the capacity to erode the party whenever it holds power. In Gujarat, it could counter all this by running an extremely emotive campaign. Now it can either get busy setting its house in order in other states or turn to its Hindutva agenda with a vengeance.