NEW DELHI: The electoral contest is narrowing down between Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress in the Himachal Pradesh assembly election as Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has not been able to make any inroads in the hill state. With approximately 2.25 lakh government employees in the state, around 1.5 lakh employees are under the New Pension Scheme, making the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) and unemployment major issues in these polls slated for November 12.
Other factors that the voters have in mind are governance, sharp rise in the cost of apple production and inflation. The ruling government has refrained from promising the restoration of the OPS, stating that the best possible has already been done for the employees considering the current financial health of the state. But oppositions, which have stood for the assembly elections in the hill state for the first time, have reiterated their promise to restore OPS if voted to power.
It is believed that the OPS will entail an additional annual burden of around Rs 600 crore on the state exchequer. With unemployment becoming an issue in these elections in Himachal again, parties have promised 75 per cent of jobs to the locals in the industrial sector. As per the figures with the department of labour and employment, the number of registered unemployed youth in the state was a staggering 8,77,507 as on March 31, 2022 which is more than 12 per cent of the total population of the state.
Moreover, the apple agitation has resurfaced in the state after three decades and is believed to be a key issue. For the last few months, the apple growers have been holding demonstrations due to six per cent increase in GST on cartons, coupled with a sharp rise in the rate of trays used inside the boxes that increase the production costs.
Talking with this newspaper, a political analyst BD Sharma said, “The Old OPS, unemployment and good governance are major issues in these assembly election besides the apple agitation, which has resurfaced in the state due to the increase in prices of fertilisers and pesticides.’’ “It is a tight contest between traditional rivals BJP and Congress and AAP is nowhere in the picture. Both BJP and Congress come to power every five years in Himachal alternatively,” he added.