Royalty could be a passé and Kings and Queens confined to the history books but in Mandi, it is the other way round. Ever since the seat was carved out six decades ago, it has been a stronghold of royal families.
The reverence of the people of this vast constituency towards royalty has ensured a relatively easy outing for Pratibha Singh, the wife of Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, the erstwhile ruler of Rampur-Bushehar. While Virbhadra Singh is known in the entire State as Raja Sahib, the Congress candidate and his wife is Rani Sahiba and their 23-year -old son Vikramaditya Singh is Tikka Sahib.
In this belt no one calls the three by their names. They are only known as Raja Sahib, Rani Sahiba and Tikka Sahib. In fact, there is no attempt by the trio to shrug off this baggage of royalty and the suffix of Sahib and Sahiba are integral to their personality as they know that this is what pays electorally in the region.
Pitted against Pratibha Singh is actually a commoner in the real sense, a typical aam aadmi, who is fighting the royalty on a BJP ticket and not that of Arvind Kejriwal’s party. Ram Swaroop Sharma is the quintessential commoner, who has never contested an election, got the party ticket by default and is from the RSS. His entire campaign is based on the tales of “Raja (they) and Runk (we)”, the King and the commoner and tells the people that the days of royalty were over long time back and they need to vote for a common man. This appeal is finding some resonance amongst the youth, particularly the first time voters.
“Former kings and queens can never feel what the common people of the constituency want and need. They are only into false promises and forget the people after winning the polls,” he repeats in almost all his elections meetings. like other BJP candidates, another name which he invokes in every meeting is that of Narendra Modi. “People of the country and Mandi want to see him as the Prime Minister. They will vote for a better future of their children, their country and their state,” he hoped.
Pratibha Singh won a bye-election less than a year ago in June last year after her husband became the Chief Minister and vacated the seat. Her victory margin over the BJP candidate was an impressive 1.36 lakh votes and even the critics of the Congress admit that despite a Modi wave in the country, it would be quite a task for the BJP novice to bridge this huge gap. Though the BJP PM candidate addressed a well attended rally here on April 29 at the Padal Grounds but at best many here think that this could reduce the margin of victory of Pratibha Singh.
Despite being on a strong wicket, the 57-year old, Rani Sahiba is not taking the polls lightly and has been campaigning for well over a month now. She is being supported by her husband and son on and off but is on her own in the tough terrain of the constituency.