Hill state lows 038; highs

The battle for Himachal Pradesh may have been fought in the shadow of the apocalyptic fight for Gujarat, but the verdict is assuming a resonance that travels beyond the borders of the quiet hill state. Year-end verdicts can have that effect. But there is more reason than that for the current BJP triumphalism and despondency in the Congress camp. The two handsome victories for the BJP in HP and Gujarat within the past week have capped a pretty good year for the party 8212; in which it also won assembly elections in Uttarakhand and, in alliance with the Akali Dal, in Punjab. In all these states, the losing party was the Congress. So, with all the mandatory health warnings in place 8212; these are state-level verdicts born of specific circumstances, and different outcomes in states that go to polls in the coming year could upturn equations 8212; it does seem that the BJP8217;s victory in Himachal portends a wider saffron consolidation. While the Congress holds the Centre, it appears to be steadily losing ground in the states.

On the edge of a new year, the Congress would do well to resist the easy comforts of the 8216;anti-incumbency8217; plea. It may be true, for instance, that Himachal Pradesh always votes out the incumbent. But this alternation is not a law of nature. It is made up of political things, specifically the unease of the voter with the performance of her government, or its inability to keep pace with her aspirations. In Himachal, the Congress must ask itself why the voter was not persuaded that the Virbhadra Singh government had done the best it could to tackle price rise, corruption and unemployment. It must ask some wider questions: in a time when the verdict at the Centre is the sum of verdicts in the states, why does the Congress have such lacklustre state leadership? Can the fuzziness of agenda that made it seem spacious and inclusive in a one-party dominant system equally serve it in times when its opposition has become sharper and stronger?

For the BJP too, there is work to do after the celebrations are over. While the party has cut a wide swathe across north India, the south remains outside its area of influence. How will the party deal with a state-level leader like Modi with national-level aspirations? What happens now to the traditional pact between the BJP and RSS, after Modi so successfully undercut the latter8217;s authority? These are some questions that will follow the BJP into the new year.