Himachal Pradesh has the record of changing governments every election since 1985, and this time too Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), following aggressive campaign, wrested power with an overwhelming majority winning 44 seats in 68 members Assembly, reducing Congress to just 21 seats with most of the Cabinet Ministers of Congress also losing elections. Results were declared on 18 December 2017 of the elections which took place on 9 November 2017 which had seen a record voter turnout of 75.28%.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed several rallies and an army of the BJP’s senior leaders such as party President Amit Shah, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath campaigned where local issues dominated the campaign. Previous Virbhadra Singh government of Congress also came under fire for the deteriorating law and order situation in the State. Coming close to the Assembly elections, a spate of such developments led to State-wide protests and only contributed to growing disenchantment with the incumbent Congress government.
- BJP increased its vote share by 10.13% from 38.47% in 2012 to 48.6% in 2017 while Congress reduced it by 0.91% from 42.81% in 2012 to 41.9% in 2017.
- Two independents and one CPI (M) member also registered victories.
- The results were with upsets for both parties with stalwarts tasting defeat.
- BJP’s Chief Ministerial face, Prem Kumar Dhumal, faced defeat in the contest for the Sujanpur constituency from its protégé Rajinder Singh Rana of Congress by about 3,500 votes.
- It was an ironical defeat because it was Dhumal who played a crucial role in ensuring the consolidation of the dominant Thakur community, that comprises 28% of the population of this hilly state, which has reported to have helped propel the BJP to its outstanding victory in the state ensuring their victory in over ten seats
- BJP’s State president Satpal Satti, facing anti-incumbency in Una as a three-time MLA, also lost
On comparison, in Himachal Pradesh, the difference in vote share was smaller at 7% and BJP won a much higher share of the seats, close to a two-thirds majority; whereas in Gujarat there is a gap of 8% between the BJP and the Congress in vote share but the victory is by an extremely slim majority of 19 seats in 182 Assembly.
BJP president Amit Shah declared his party’s victories in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh as the triumph of performance and development over a “negative campaign” based on “casteism, nepotism and appeasement politics” run by the rival Congress.
Now, either the BJP or one of its partners in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is in control of 19 of the 29 states and never before has any political party controlled as many states in India. Much of this success is being credited to Prime Minister Narendra Modi after he came to power in May 2014. In December 1993 Congress controlled 18 states: with 15 states out of 26 by itself and one through an alliance and two others were held by CPI (M), which then provided an outside support to the Congress government at the Centre.
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