An upbeat Cong to keep BJP Govt under pressure at Dharamshala

Shimla: Five –day long winter session of the Himachal Pradesh assembly, which will begin at Dharamshala on Friday, is likely to see an upbeat congress maintaining its pressure on the BJP government on 'effective' governance and its declining popularity graph.

This is the first session being held after the Congress winning four bypolls including Mandi parliamentary constituency in the home district of Chief Minister.

The Congress strength in the House has also gone up to 22, a gain of one seat at Jubbal Kotkhai where two-time MLA Rohit Thakur defeated the BJP's Neelam Saraik, who also lost her security deposits.

"The victory of the congress in the bypoll is a signal about declining graph of the BJP in the state. The people are completely disappointed with the performance of the government, which had promised good governance ,faster development (double engine growth) and check on corruption. The people are feeling cheated at end of the four-year term," said Rohit Thakur.

With just one year left to go to the polls, Thakur said the congress will mobilize the masses and expose the falsehood of the BJP, both at the national level and state.

"The congress is very well on the path of returning to power in 2021 and BJP will get wiped out in the polls," he predicted here.

Holding of winter session at Dharamshala –where second complex of the state assembly was built-up 2006-2007 ,has almost become a political compulsion of the state government ,though many admit it being a drain on the exchequer to maintain the institution.

Much credit goes to the legacy of Virbhadra Singh, who got the practice of holding sessions at Dharamshala started in 2005-2007 and also spent Rs 12 crore to construct a centrally heated new building within an year's time with eye on assembly polls, which eventually he lost to the BJP.

The successive BJP governments, two led by Prem Kumar Dhumal and incumbent headed by Jai Ram Thakur also could not reserve the practice. The building incurs a huge annual maintenance cost and is used only once in the year.

Every year, ahead of the session an entourage 80 to 85 employees of the state assembly secretariat and more 150 government officers, top secretaries, DGP and dozens of IPS officers in high ranks, Administrative officers, Secretariat babus, subordinate staff, drivers and peons move down to Dharamshala for the session.

Entire cabinet and Chief Minister's secretariat also set-ups their camp officers at Dharamshala as circuit houses, rest houses and luxury hotels are booked for the ministers and MLAs.

The government spends crores of rupee to maintain the tradition and the assembly building is spruced up for the occasion and heavy deployment of the security and law enforcing personnel is done to upgrade the VVIP security.

The Covid time calls for additional arrangements to enforce the guidelines for Covid appropriate behavior. Last year due to Covid, the assembly session could not be held.