Voting for 68 seats in Himachal on Sunday

The high pitch electoral battle with new lows between the Congress and the BJP will culminate on Sunday with voting scheduled for 68 member state legislative assembly, Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Nov 3, 2012, 19:30:22 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The high pitch electoral battle with new lows between the Congress and the BJP will culminate on Sunday with voting scheduled for 68 member state legislative assembly.

The BJP tried to corner the Congress stalwart Virbadhra Singh with allegations of corruption but its impact is unlikely in the state where the core election issue had been pace of development, rising unemployment, increase in prices and high levels of petty corruption.

Singh has openly accused the chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal of BJP of giving away chunks of prime land to private players at throwaway prices. The same accusation had also come against Dhumal from within BJP.

The political parties had a tough time gauging the water with electorate maintaining stoic silence and attendance in rallies being poor.

This was despite both the parties coming out with several promises to allure the voters during the campaign period.

While BJP and the Congress are contesting all 68 seats, the BSP has emerged as the third largest party in fray with its candidates in 66 seats.

However, going by the past performance where BSP received less than 2% votes, it may not turn the applecart in the state.

But, the surprise factor may be Himachal Lokhit Party led by four time MP and former BJP state president Maheshwar Singh, which is contesting in 36 seats.

The rebel candidates of BJP and Congress, contesting in over half of the total seats, have a potential in some segments to turn the tide away from the main political parties.

In all there are 459 candidates in the fray for Sunday polling with just 27 women even though the women voters in the state outnumber men voters.

The Election Commission has set up as many as 7253 polling stations with the highest polling station in the country at Hikkim in Lahaul and Spiti at a height of over 15,000 feet.

The statistical tide favours Congress as never a party has repeated a government since 1977 when Shanta Kumar of BJP became the youngest chief minister of the state.

The electoral results to be announced on December 20 with that of Gujarat could witness emergence of younger leaders in both Congress and BJP.

Many believe that it may be last innings for chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal and Singh of Congress at helm of affairs in the state politics.

In the 2007 poll, BJP had won 41 as against Congress' 23, while the independents and BSP won 3 and one seat respectively.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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