Himachal results: Did BJP falter in going after Satyendra Jain?

New Delhi: The strategy to go after Delhi health minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Satyendra Jain seems to have backfired on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Himachal Pradesh.  

Jain was the AAP in-charge of the hill state.  

Soon after its astounding victory in Punjab in March this year, the AAP went all guns blazing in neighbouring Himachal Pradesh.  

It got some traction as well. Many disgruntled leaders of the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress soon joined it. A few rallies by AAP convenor and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann were well received on the ground.  

The AAP looked all set to play the spoiler and disturb the bipolar politics of the state. The victory in Punjab followed by the AAP's activities had visibly worried the Congress that was hoping to return to power riding on the BJP government's anti-incumbency factor and critical issues such as price rise, unemployment and the old age pension scheme.  

Besides, the grand old party was also banking on the hill state's decades-old tradition of throwing out the incumbent government after every five years.  

The AAP was emerging as a thorn in the Congress party's flesh. The BJP too was rattled. Senior leaders of both the parties had also contacted Jain to discuss their future plan.  

Then on May 30, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Jain in a money laundering case. The move derailed the AAP’s surge in the hill state as its campaign fizzled out, thus once again making the contest once again a straight fight between the BJP and the Congress. Kejriwal then shifted his focus to Gujarat, where the AAP managed to win five seats with a vote share of around 13%.  

The Gujarat outcome helped the AAP bag the stature of a national party. It became the ninth recognised national party in India. Apart from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, the remaining eight are the Trinamool Congress, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Communist Party of India, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Nationalist Congress Party, and the National People’s Party.  

In Himachal Pradesh, the AAP was bound to damage the Congress as it would have cut into the anti-incumbency votes and helped the BJP retain power. It happened in Goa and Uttarakhand in the elections earlier this year. Even in Gujarat, the AAP divided the anti-BJP vote in Saurashtra and the tribal belt as well.  

Local BJP leaders now blame former chief minister Jairam Thakur and union minister Anurag Thakur for this tactical blunder of arresting Jain at that juncture. According to these local leaders, Jain's arrest should have been postponed till the peak of the AAP campaign in October or November. By then, there would have been a substantial swing of the anti-BJP vote in favour of Kejriwal’s party to damage the Congress, they argued.  

Thus, the BJP seemed to have faltered in its plan in the hill state as voters rejected its ‘rivaaj badlo (change the trend)’ campaign theme to maintain the decades-old tradition of alternating power after every five years. In the end, the Congress won comfortably.