By IANS
Shimla : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is getting ready to regroup in Himachal Pradesh under Prem Kumar Dhumal, who is to be its chief ministerial candidate for the assembly polls next month.
The BJP national leadership in New Delhi Monday decided to field Prem Kumar Dhumal as its candidate from the Bamsan constituency in Hamirpur, instead of his senior Shanta Kumar who has not been given the party ticket for the assembly polls to be held Dec 19.
BJP sources said senior leader Lal Krishna Advani backed Dhumal even though party president Rajnath Singh was not in favour of projecting anybody as chief minister until the poll results – expected Dec 28 – were out.
“Dhumal will be projected as the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate in Himachal Pradesh,” Singh said in Delhi Monday.
With this, Shanta Kumar, 73, has lost out twice to his one-time protégé Dhumal, 63, who was made chief minister of the hill state in 1998.
Earlier this year, Dhumal had won the Hamirpur Lok Sabha by-election with a thumping majority. There were indications that he would remain in central politics and Kumar would be given a chance in state politics, but all that seems to have changed now.
Even though Kumar is seen as a tough leader, his drawbacks are his tough decisions. During his tenure as chief minister in the early 1990s, he had come down hard on state government employees by implementing the policy of “no work no pay”.
He had also violently crushed an agitation by apple farmers in the mid-hills of the state. Many say this divided the state on regional lines. There were fears that this regional divide would re-surface and damage the party if Kumar was chosen chief ministerial candidate.
Dhumal, apparently, is seen as a softer leader and the party thinks if he is projected as chief minister it will gain more votes, party sources said.
On the other hand, the BJP is likely to lose votes in the state’s most populous district of Kangra, the home district of Kumar, now that the party has sidelined him.
The forthcoming polls are expected to be bitterly fought between the BJP and its archrival Congress, which is now in power.