Himachal Pradesh and Goa have among the smallest of the seven state assemblies for which elections are due next year. For the Congress party, which is in power in Himachal and is the principal opposition in Goa, the two states, however, are beginning to pose big problems – and, of its own making.
Barely four months after it was wiped out in the polls to three of Himachal’s four municipal corporations, sweeping Palampur while losing Dharamshala, Solan, and Mandi to the BJP, the Congress, on Thursday (September 10) lost control of the Shimla Zila Parishad too. The election of BJP nominees to the posts of Shimla Zila Parishad chairman and vice-chairman broke 26 years of the Congress’s uninterrupted control over the civic body.
‘Widespread dissatisfaction against Himachal CM Sukhu’
The defeat, sources say, came while the Congress high command was vacillating on a decision to rejig the state cabinet amid calls to address “widespread dissatisfaction” against Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu’s style of functioning.
In this backdrop, the Shimla loss would sting the Congress even more. Not only is Shimla the state’s political and administrative nerve centre, but three of Sukhu’s 10 cabinet colleagues – education minister Rohit Thakur, rural development minister Anirudh Singh, and Public Works minister Vikramaditya Singh – represent assembly segments of this district.
Congress sources say the loss of successive urban local body elections has put the party, and more particularly the Sukhu government, on notice, coming as they do little over a year ahead of the assembly polls due in Himachal towards end-2027. That the hill state has never voted an incumbent government back to power since 1977 only compounds the Congress’s problems. More so as, even within the party, the widely-held belief is that the Sukhu administration has done little to stem anti-incumbency over issues ranging from growing unemployment and unrest among government employees to economic stagnation.
Also Read: Why protecting Sukhu may land Congress in deeper trouble in Himachal
A senior Congress MLA told The Federal that while the Congress high command has set a “two-week deadline” to revamp the state cabinet, the predominant view within the party’s state unit is that “cosmetic changes to the cabinet will not help the party when the real problem is the chief minister himself”.
“Frankly, we are now past the stage where a cabinet reshuffle will set things right. For over two years, many leaders have been imploring the high command to change the CM or at least direct him to change his functioning, but to no avail,” the MLA said.
An AICC leader who has been involved with party affairs in Himachal was more scathing. “The administration is on auto-pilot; officers don’t listen even to ministers, forget MLAs, and neither does the CM. When the former PCC chief (Pratibha Singh) raised these issues, they were dismissed because the leadership felt she had a vested interest as she and her son (minister Vikramaditya Singh) lead one faction of the party. But now even those once considered part of Sukhu’s faction have begun to complain about his incompetence and arrogance.”
What Congress needs in Himachal
Rajni Patil, the AICC in-charge for Himachal, is learnt to have informed the party high command “over two months back” that the Congress’s victory prospects in next year’s assembly polls will “continue to be in constant decline” if there isn’t either a change in leadership or a change in Sukhu’s functioning.
Despite what seems to be an overwhelming sense of resentment against Sukhu’s leadership, sources say the high command remains “unwilling” to bench him, ostensibly because he has the backing of party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi. It was Priyanka’s strong support for Sukhu that helped the fourth-term Nadaun MLA elbow then PCC chief Pratibha Singh out of the CM race back in 2022 when the Congress won 40 of the state’s 68 assembly seats to unseat the BJP from power.
Also Read: Himachal Pradesh: Sukhu does a balancing act; expands cabinet with 7 ministers
Sukhu and Pratibha, widow of late Congress stalwart and Himachal’s six-term CM Virbhadra Singh, have been engaged in a turf war ever since. Speaking to The FederalPratibha downplayed her rivalry with Sukhu, claiming she and the CM share a “common concern of ensuring that our party wins next year’s election”. Yet, she also conceded that “there is unhappiness among party workers over being neglected by their own government, and among the people of the state because some of our promises remain unfulfilled”.
The Sukhu camp, shrinking as it may be, maintains that there is a “smear campaign” against the chief minister by vested interests within the party.
“The reality is very different. The results in the urban local body poll are, no doubt, a cause of concern, but these are elections where results are determined by very local factors. Let us not forget that if we have lost some corporations and zila parishads, we have also swept local body polls in rural areas and a majority of assembly bypolls held in the past two years. If Sukhu is liable for the defeats, he should also be credited for the victories,” a minister and close aide of the CM told The Federal.
Choosing Chodankar over Patkar in Goa
If the party high command is seen as doing precious little to end factional feuds in the Himachal unit, in Goa, it appears to be complicit in exacerbating them.
In May this year, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge appointed Girish Chodankar as chief of the party’s Goa unit. Chodankar’s return to the role he was relieved from in 2022 after leading the Congress to a drubbing in the polls held that year came at the cost of Amit Patkar.
Sources in the Goa Congress say Patkar, who spent the last four years rebuilding the party from the grassroots and was emerging as a popular leader, was “not even informed that he is being replaced by Chodankar”. Expectedly, the former Goa Congress chief has been sulking and, as per his confidantes, “working independently without any support from Chodankar”.
Also Read: In Goa, Congress fought a losing battle, but not hard enough to win
In the three months since Chodankar took over as Goa Congress chief, Patkar and his supporters have been left out in the cold by the party.
“Some of those who worked closely with Patkar and were vocal in their dissent over his unceremonious departure have been suspended from the party while those who remain are totally sidelined. There is no communication with Chodankar, and any effort to approach KC Venugopal (the AICC’s all-powerful organisation in-charge) with our grievances is met with threats of expulsion from the party,” said a Goa Congress leader who was a state unit office bearer under Patkar.
Chodankar dismisses such claims as “motivated and misleading”.
“I have been appointed by the Congress president. My job is to unite the party and win the elections; that is what I have been trying to do ever since I took charge. My doors are open for everyone and if anyone has a problem with me, they can speak to me about it,” Chodankar said.
Possibility of a third front emerging
The growing friction within its Goa unit should, perhaps, worry the Congress high command a tad more than the problems in Himachal.
For starters, elections in Goa are due early next year alongside the polls for Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Manipur while those in Himachal are scheduled for end-2027. This gives the Congress, already besieged by similar infighting in its Punjab, Uttarakhand, and UP units, a shorter window to resolve the crisis unfolding in Goa compared to the one it has in Himachal to make amends.
Also Read: Congress sheds inertia, signals sweeping nationwide overhaul after poll churn
More importantly, while Himachal is still a predominantly bipolar state with the Congress and the BJP being the only serious contenders for power, Goa, despite having a 40-member assembly with a much smaller electorate that naturally means closer electoral contests, threatens to be a multi-cornered contest. Add to that the fact that not only has the Congress been out of power in the state since 2012 but its electoral footprint has shrunk so drastically that even for a 40-member assembly, it has been scouting desperately for alliance partners.
This is where the scorned Patkar could make the going more difficult for the Congress. Sources close to the former Goa unit chief, who plans to re-enter the poll arena from Curchorem after losing his debut contest from the seat narrowly in 2022, say Patkar “cannot be expected to wait indefinitely for an olive branch from the high command”.
Patkar’s supporters say he is also “exploring options” of joining forces with Goa Forward Party chief and third-term Fatorda MLA Vijay Sardesai and the AAP to mount a “third front that is independent of the Congress”.
Congress’s efforts to form alliance in Goa
Aware that a split of anti-BJP votes cost it dear in the 2022 polls, which saw the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and the AAP win two seats each and the Revolutionary Goans Party bagging one, the Congress had formed a six-member panel, headed by state in-charge Manikrao Thakre, last month to finalise an alliance for the upcoming polls. The Thakre-led committee, it is learnt, has been aggressively courting the Goa Forward Party (GFP) and the RGP since, but Sardesai has remained elusive.
Also Read: Congress to contest both Goa LS seats in alliance with AAP
A member of the Congress’s alliance panel said Sardesai, a former deputy chief minister of Goa, is “adamant about being projected as the CM face of the alliance”; a demand that the Congress finds “unacceptable”.
“If Patkar opens a channel with Sardesai and they come together to form a front that includes AAP and other smaller outfits, we’ll lose the election even before the campaign begins. The manner of Patkar’s removal was wrong. It shouldn’t have been done, but if the high command had its reasons, it should have at least sat Patkar down and explained the compulsions to him. That abrupt decision to drop Patkar and then for Venugopal to go out of his way to humiliate Patkar’s supporters may haunt us as we move closer to the polls,” the alliance committee member added.