Congress has opened a new leaf in Himachal Pradesh. by choosing Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu became the Chief Ministerand the state’s 15th, on Sunday. The victory in Himachal Pradesh has come as a ray of hope for the Congress. Amidst the dark clouds over the party. The victory is narrow – the Congress leads rival Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by one percentage point in terms of vote share – and the state is small with four Lok Sabha seats. Nevertheless, the party’s return to power after a gap of five years has raised hopes that it could be a refuge for those looking for an alternative to the BJP. The party soon settled the dispute for the top post. In choosing Mr. Sukhu, it has made a change that has the potential to inspire workers and blunt the BJP’s charge of dynastic politics leveled against it. The son of a bus driver and a four-time MLA who sold milk in his early years, Mr Sukhu is as humble and down to earth as a politician can be. The soft-spoken leader never shied away from taking a position and stood by the late Virbhadra Singh, who dominated the Congress for decades. Mr. Sukhu is uniquely qualified for the job, and his promotion signals a much-needed but often missing dynamism in Congress.
The new leader will have an uphill task in managing party dynamics and governance. The Congress has made many promises, which have not been fully thought through. At the top of the list is the promise of restoration of the old pension scheme in place of the new market-linked pension system (NPS). Return to OPS will lead to introduction of new welfare schemes which will put a burden on the exchequer. The state has 1.5 lakh employees under the NPS, and most of them who are opposing it are likely to side with the Congress in these elections. Mr. Sukhu’s rise also destabilizes the established power structure in the Congress and he must ensure the support of Virbhadra Singh’s family and loyalists. They will also have to bear the weight of the expectations generated by the national plans of the Congress. The party wants to make a show of governance in the three states under its rule to garner votes elsewhere. Himachal Pradesh may be a small state, but with the change of government, it has acquired a status that is out of proportion to its size. What works in Mr. Sukhu’s favor is the goodwill he has garnered over 40 years in politics.