Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Dec 11: After a “chaiwala” as prime minister, Himachal Pradesh now has a “doodhwala” as the chief minister. Born in a humble rural family, the son of a bus driver Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu, who ran a milk counter in his early days in Chhota Shimla, was on Sunday took oath as the 15th chief minister bringing the Congress back to power in the hill state.
Top Congress leaders including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, senior party leader and MP K.C. Venugopal and other leaders attended the oath taking ceremony of the new Chief Minister Sukhu, and Mukesh Agnihotri as the deputy chief minister at Ridge Maidan in Shimla on Sunday in the presence of the state Congress president Pratibha Singh, who was also in the running for the top job.
Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar administered the oath of office and secrecy to Mr. Sukhu and Mr. Agnihotri. In a grand symbolic gesture on stage right after the newly elected leaders were sworn-in, a garlanded picture of late Virbhadra Singh, former royal and six time Chief Minister of the hill state, was put up and all leaders paid their respects with folded hands.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi was also seen hugging Pratibha Singh, wife of late Virbhadra Singh, on stage. The Gandhis’ gesture is an olive branch to the disgruntled supporters of Pratibha Singh, who had mobbed the hotel where the party’s central observers were staying, and raised slogans in her support. They even stopped the car of Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, one of the central observers, before the party’s crucial meeting, to send a direct message to the leadership.
The decision to appoint Mukesh Agnihotri, a protégé of late Virbhadra Singh and leader of the opposition in the outgoing Himachal Pradesh assembly, as the first Deputy Chief Minister of the state is also being seen as a balancing act by the Congress to assuage egos. Pratibha Singh had reportedly even batted for him to be made the Chief Minister after she was ruled out herself.
This is All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Priyanka Gandhi’s first electoral success while heading the campaign charge. The party had lost Uttar Pradesh assembly polls while she spearheaded the canvassing there earlier this year.
Mr Sukhu, MLA from Nadaun in the hill state’s Hamirpur district, headed the Congress’ campaign committee for the recently held state polls. 58-year-old Sukhwinder Sukhu was chosen by the Congress high command for the top post amid hectic lobbying by Pratibha Singh, Congress MP and the wife of former Chief Minister and Congress veteran, the late Virbhadra Singh.
A four-time MLA, Mr Sukhu had started his political career from the campus of Himachal Pradesh University in Shimla where he rose through the ranks of the Congress-affiliated National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) and later became the president of the student body. Mr Sukhu served as the Himachal Pradesh Youth Congress chief for a decade and later served as the Himachal Pradesh Congress chief for a record six years from 2013 to 2019. In 2003, he won his first assembly election from Nadaun, retained his seat in 2007, lost in 2012 before winning it again in 2017 and 2022.
Though the Congress wrested power from the BJP in Himachal Pradesh by winning 40 out of the 68 assembly seats, party candidates had a wafer-thin victory margin of less than 2,000 in 15 seats. The Congress and the BJP got 40 and 25 seats respectively, but the difference in the vote share was only 0.90 per cent.
Mr Sukhu shares a close relationship with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, and is the first politician from lower Himachal Pradesh comprising areas merged in Himachal in 1966 such as Nalagarh, Una, Hamirpur, Kangra and lower hills of Kullu – to occupy the top post. He will be the second chief minister from Hamirpur district, after BJP’s Prem Kumar Dhumal.
After hectic deliberations over the names of several contenders of Chief Minister’s post, the party high command on Saturday announced Sukhu’s name for the Chief Minister post, and to pacify the rival camp led by Pratibha Singh Agnihotri was named the deputy chief minister.
