Himachal Congress leaders unimpressed with Priyanka Gandhi's team managing Himachal polls

A Congress' move to hand over the election management in Himachal Pradesh to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and her team has received a lukewarm response from state leaders who appear sceptical after their disastrous performance in the recent Uttar Pradesh polls.

The move comes in the wake of an internal assessment by the Congress suggesting that it has a strong chance of ousting the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party from power in the hill state in the assembly elections due in November-December this year, but a divided house is going to severely impact its chances of coming back to power.

Sources cited the examples of the recent assembly elections in Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur where the Congress had a strong chance of regaining power but the infighting cost it dearly and eventually resulted in the BJP's repeat victory.

In Punjab too, factionalism affected the Congress' prospects to such an extent that its masterstroke of appointing Charanjit Singh Channi as Punjab's first Dalit chief minister in place of veteran Captain Amarinder Singh six months before the polls turned into a mess, enabling the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to register a resounding win.

Vadra will be assisted by the party's Himachal Pradesh in-charge Rajiv Shukla and at least 12 All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretaries.

Each secretary will be assigned 5-6 constituencies of the total 68 seats and they will be responsible for the outcome on those seats. They will report directly to Vadra who is also expected to camp in the state, unlike the Uttar Pradesh elections which she oversaw mainly from Delhi.

Vadra and her team, including her close aide Sandeep Singh and a bunch of AICC secretaries, faced flak for the Congress' poor show in the country's most populous and politically important state.

Her coterie is also blamed for the exit of senior leaders, including former union ministers Jitin Prasada and RPN Singh. They were also accused of running a roughshod over Uttar Pradesh Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu and of interference in the ticket distribution.

The Congress contested on all 403 seats in Uttar Pradesh but managed to bag just two seats only. The grand old party had won seven seats in the 2017 assembly elections.

Himachal Pradesh is a cyclic state where no incumbent government has returned to power with the exception of 1985 when the late Virbhadra Singh had opted for mid-term polls to encash the Indira Gandhi assassination wave and to consolidate his grip over the state.

By that logic, the Congress should come to power this time. However, the BJP is buoyed by its performance in Uttarakhand where it broke this rotation of changing governments by retaining power. Similarly, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) demolished this cycle in Kerala in the 2021 assembly elections.

Some of these 12 AICC secretaries to be deputed for Himachal Pradesh have been drawn out from Vadra's Uttar Pradesh team, prompting some Himachal Pradesh Congress leaders to take a jibe at them.

"They will try their best to repeat their UP performance in Himachal. Vadra has no magic wand and the big question is who will bring Sanjeevini booti to revive Congress," said a party leader.