While the Congress has been making “vote chori (theft)” allegations against the BJP, in Himachal Pradesh, it is the one at the receiving end.
Last week, two-time Independent MLA-turned-BJP leader Hoshyar Singh Chambyal, who lost to Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s wife Kamlesh Thakur from the Dehra Assembly seat in a June 2024 by-election, moved the Himachal Pradesh High Court, challenging her victory.
What are the BJP’s allegations?
Chambyal has accused the government of violation of the Model Code of Conduct, crediting lakhs of rupees into the bank accounts of thousands of women voters in Dehra under schemes such as the Indira Gandhi Pyari Behna Sukh Samman Nidhi Yojana and the Common Good Scheme. “I moved the petition after receiving information through RTI. The matter is likely to come up for hearing next month,” the BJP leader told The Indian Express.
Last week, Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur lent his voice to the charges, accusing the Sukhu government of “blatantly distributing money among women voters through Kangra Cooperative Bank during the code of conduct”. He termed the Dehra episode “the first of its kind in Himachal where government mechanisms were used to tilt an election”.
The BJP had taken up the issue in the recent Assembly session too, but the government deflected the attacks.
How has the Congress responded?
It has dismissed Chambyal’s petition as an “act of desperation” after losing the bypoll and a part of the Opposition’s long-term strategy to topple the democratically elected Sukhu government.
Senior Congress leader Naresh Chauhan, the principal media adviser to the CM, said: “The BJP has been trying to topple the Congress government in Himachal using money power since 2023. They influenced six Congress MLAs and later inducted three Independents with the intention to topple the government. The people of Himachal foiled the attempts. This time, too, the BJP will not get anything. The state government has not interfered in the Kangra Cooperative Bank.”
What political challenge does this pose?
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At a time when the hill state is battling the aftermath of the widespread destruction because of recent rains and is under financial pressure — earlier this month, it “put in abeyance” a notification withdrawing increased salaries for state government employees — the Sukhu government can ill-afford this added legal and political challenge.
The bypoll win had marked the Congress’s first-ever victory from Dehra, and had come at a time when CM Sukhu required a much-needed boost. His leadership had come under scrutiny following a setback over cross-voting in an election earlier that year for a vacant seat in the Rajya Sabha, despite the Congress having 40 MLAs in the 68-member Assembly at the time. Sukhu had aggressively campaigned for his wife in the bypoll, promising that Dehra would get a “CM in its MLA”.
Any charge that sticks against wife Kamlesh Thakur now will weaken the CM’s position and open him up to attacks from the BJP.
For Kamlesh, a longtime Congress worker rooted in Dehra’s Nalsuha panchayat, too, the case is her first real political test. Her campaign narrative of being “Dehra’s dhayana (sister)” had strongly resonated in the bypoll.