Stepping out of ‘Raja’ Virbhadra’s shadow, ‘commoner’ CM Sukhu braces for headwinds

Rising through the ranks in the Congress, Sukhu, who started his political innings from the NSUI and Youth Congress, was one of the few party leaders who would openly stand up to Virbhadra, who dominated the Himachal party politics for decades until his demise in July last year. With the Congress high command’s backing, however, Sukhu continued to flourish in the state party unit and was appointed its chief in 2013 despite having lost his seat in the 2012 Assembly polls.

Now that he is in the saddle, Sukhu runs the risk of facing dissent that he was also accused of indulging in during his tenure as the Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC) president. Ironically, this time round, his former bete noire’s wife Pratibha Singh is heading the HPCC.

The Congress leadership acted swiftly to resolve the leadership tangle in the state. While Sukhu, a Rajput, got the top post, Virbhadra’s protégé Mukesh Agnihotri, a Brahmin, was sworn in as the Deputy CM. Now the onus of keeping the state party united mainly rests on the CM.

The first major test Sukhu faces is that of ensuring the formation of his Cabinet smoothly amid pulls and pressures from various party factions. The state Congress is full of ministry hopefuls, who are making a beeline to the national capital as part of their lobbying exercise. Although Sukhu has bought time by declaring that the ministry will be formed after the upcoming first Assembly session, the naming of 10 more ministers for it may have a crucial bearing on the stability of his government. He will have to take into consideration not just the poll records of the candidates and their standing within the party but also the region they represent.

For long, the Congress has had its CMs from Upper Himachal. This is the first time that both CM Sukhu and his deputy Agnihotri hail from Lower Himachal, once considered a stronghold of the BJP. The Kangra parliamentary constituency, which plays the kingmaker role because of accounting for 15 of the state’s total 68 Assembly seats, would have to be given a significant representation in the ministry. It is the same case with regard to the Shimla region, where the Congress won seven of the eight Assembly seats.

Then there are leaders like former minister Sudhir Sharma, six-time MLA Harshvardhan Chauhan, and ex-state chief Kuldeep Singh Rathore, whose names had been doing the rounds for the CM chair earlier. They too are said to be lobbying hard for a ministerial berth now. Sukhu will also have to balance the caste equation as OBCs and Dalits have voted heavily for the party.

Though the Congress gained a clear majority by winning 40 seats, the BJP, which went all out to change Himachal’s “riwaaz (trend)” of alternate governments, won 25 seats, getting just 0.9 per cent lesser vote share than the former. There has been a buzz that the saffron party would make a power play by using the Congress’s internal faultlines to its advantage in the coming days.

That the Congress is wary of the BJP was evident from speculations that it was herding its legislators to Chhattisgarh or Rajasthan last week. Finally, after the swearing in on Sunday, it called them to the national capital Wednesday, from where they headed to Rajasthan to take part in the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra.

Among other challenges, Sukhu also faces the unenviable task of fulfilling the promises that the Congress made in its manifesto in a bid to outsmart both the BJP and the new entrant Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). In one of his first announcements after being sworn in as the CM, Sukhu promised to revoke the new pension scheme which applies to over 1.5 lakh employees. While the decision may not have any immediate fallout, it would later come to haunt the government, which gets only a fourth of its revenue from its Own Tax Revenues (OTR). Similarly, the talk about buying milk at Rs 100 a litre may be music to the ears of dairy farmers, but would pile pressure on consumers.

The Congress government will also have to act fast to address the concerns of apple growers, who are one of the pillars of the hill state’s economy. Faced with diminishing returns, they are looking at the new government to shore up their shrinking profits.

But the biggest challenge that stares the Sukhu government in the face is that of the runaway unemployment. At 9 lakh, the total number of registered unemployed youth in Himachal is around 12% of its population. According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), at 9.2%, the state has the fourth highest unemployment rate in the country this October. So the government will need to accelerate industrialisation to generate more employment besides giving a new push to the tourism sector, which plays a key role in generating jobs in the state.

There is a perception that the people would want Sukhu to be a “strong and decisive” CM. Former CM and BJP leader Jairam Thakur, despite enjoying a clean image, was perceived to be a “weak CM”. Whether Sukhu, who managed to stand up to “Raja Saab” as Virbhadra was also called, will be up to it, only the time will tell.