Cash crunch hits Congress, Virbhadra Singh forced to take cars instead of choppers

At the crack of dawn, a restless Virbhadra Singh was ready to cast his vote in the nearest polling station in Rampur. Once he did that around 7am, the octogenarian CM left for Shimla.    

In the last two weeks, the six-time CM and member of the erstwhile Shimla royal family has been clocking unbelievable hours on the road. Without the finances to book choppers for every ride, Singh has mostly been travelling from constituency to constituency by road, taking choppers only when he really needs to. In the last 12 days, save for the day when Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi came for rallies when there were three meetings, Singh has held four meetings every day. The Congress's poll team says that they had planned the tour keeping in mind Singh's health, an in any given day, the poll venues were not too far from each other.  

Congress leaders in the state say that the money spent in the Himachal Pradesh elections has left a lot for the imagination. “We had lesser resources and that meant that the publicity was subdued, we had lesser hoardings, booked fewer helicopters when one compares to the BJP’s blitzkrieg,” said a senior Congress leader from the state on conditions of anonymity.      

He added that the amount that the cash-strapped All India Congress Committee at the headquarters spent on each candidate -- Rs 28 lakh, was too less and it was evident that the high command had paid most of their attention in Gujarat.

“In comparison, the BJP held rath yatras where each rath cost a few crores, and they booked anywhere between 150-200 cars. The money they spent on publicity campaigns on TV has broken records, too,” said the leader, adding that the demonetization move has affected every party apart from the BJP.

The disproportionate assets case against CM Virbhadra Singh, too, has made matters worse for the CM, with some of his assets being sealed. His son, Vikramaditya, however, is the richest candidate in the state with assets worth Rs 83 crore.

Virbhadra, however, dismisses these cases. “I come from a family of royals, with valuable assets being passed on to me over generations. If I have ancestral money and that is worrying the BJP, there’s not much I can do, can I,” said Singh, who says that this will be his last elections.

While the BJP brought in everyone from PM Modi, to party chief Amit Shah to union ministers Arun Jaitley, Thawarchand Gehlot, Smriti Irani, JP Nada etc., to campaign, Singh was the lone Congress warhorse, save for a day of campaigning by Rahul Gandhi and Capt Amarinder, and the presence of senior Congress leaders Sushil Kumar Shinde and Anand Sharma. In fact, it was when she was lifted off in a chopper headed to Delhi owing to a medical emergency, did people know that Congress president Sonia Gandhi, too, was in Shimla.

Does he feel more attention could have been showered? "I don't think so. Virbhadra alone is enough from the Congress," chuckles the soft-spoken Singh.