Himachal Pradesh 2022: Cong tastes victory, BJP faces ‘vendetta’, HPSSC gets suspended

Shimla: Even as Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra covered territory elsewhere in an attempt to connect the Congress again with voters, it was in Himachal Pradesh that the party scored. After a long losing streak, it won a state again this month.

The Congress bagged 40 of the 68 seats in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly polls, wresting power from the BJP which got only 25. But despite the convincing margin, the party appeared to fumble somewhat over the next step – forming the government.

Pratibha Singh -- the wife of Virbhadra Singh, a six-time chief minister who died last year – staked her claim to the chief minister’s post. But the Congress high command went instead with state election campaign committee head Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, a leader with a much humbler background than erstwhile royalty.

For the first time, the state also got a deputy chief minister in Mukesh Agnihotri.

But as the new year approaches, the two-member cabinet is yet to be expanded to its full strength of 12, giving rise to speculation that the party is having a tough time balancing the two main factions in its state unit.

The new government, however, has been quick on another front. It has already undone several steps taken by the previous dispensation. It ordered a review of decisions taken in recent months, sacked officials on extension and put projects on hold.

More controversially, it scrapped about 600 facilities – ranging from health centres and schools to power department offices. The Sukhu government claimed that some of these were just on paper and there was no provision made for many of them in the state Budget.

But the BJP is crying foul, calling it 'vendetta politics'.

In the run-up to the year-end elections, the BJP government in the state and at the Centre brought some high-ticket projects to Himachal Pradesh -– the foundation stone for a bulk drug park was laid in Una, an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) inaugurated in Bilaspur and a Vande Mataram train flagged off from Una district.

The then government announced a revision of pay scales for government employees and other sops that put a heavy financial burden on the state exchequer, which the new government claims is saddled with a debt of about Rs 75,000 crore.

For employees on contract, the BJP government allowed regularisation of services after two years, instead of the earlier three. But it stopped short of agreeing to the demand for reviving the Old Pension Scheme, which was in place before the new system that requires employees’ contribution to a pension fund.

Government workers launched a state-wide agitation for the old scheme, holding rallies and even staging a “gherao” of the state assembly building.

A remark by the then chief minister Jai Ram Thakur in the assembly triggered sharp criticism. Fight the elections if you want the OPS, he said. “Pension chaihyey to election lad lo.” The Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party did just that, making the OPS a major campaign issue. And this might have just helped the Congress win the polls, in which a percentage point of vote share separated the winner from the loser.

Apple growers were also up in arms against the previous government over the 18 per cent GST on packing material and the increase in the cost of other inputs. They were also upset over the BJP government’s refusal to levy a “100 per cent” import duty on fruit -- to help the Himachali apple compete with foreign-grown produce.

Mandi witnessed a liquor tragedy in January. Seven people died and nine were admitted to hospital. Investigations revealed that the raw material for the illicit liquor was procured from outside the state. Twenty-three people were arrested.

Leaked exam papers led to rows.

The Sukhu government suspended the functioning of the Himachal Pradesh Staff Selection Commission (HPSSC) after a test paper for recruitment of office assistants leaked recently –- an employee at the commission was among the six people arrested initially.

In May, during the BJP term, over 250 people were arrested after the exam paper for the recruitment of constables leaked. The arrested included the owner of a printing press, coaching centre owners and family members of some candidates. The CBI has now taken over the case.

Another paper leak of sorts threw the exam schedule at the government-run Himachal Pradesh University out of gear the same month.

The question papers for the first and second-year undergraduate exams were sent to affiliated colleges in 2020, but the tests were not held that year due to the Covid pandemic. In about 20 colleges, these were distributed among students as sample question papers.

The university authorities realised this just a couple of days before the exams, with the same test papers, were to be held.

Low pass percentages of 31 in BSc first year and 58 in BCom first year in HPU colleges also sparked a row, with students protesting against the online evaluation system. A re-evaluation has improved the overall pass percentage, but only slightly.