It’s 9 am on December 20 and the election results of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections are beginning to trickle in. We are seated with Virbhadra Singh, a former Chief Minister of the state and till recently a Union Cabinet Minister. He has a house atop a hill that overlooks the Ridge in Shimla and he is referred to reverentially by his supporters as “Raja Sa’b”. Virbhadra Singh looks unperturbed by the initial results showing the BJP ahead on the five seats for which the results are available.

He orders the television to be switched off and, turning to us, says he is confident the Congress will win between 40 and 45 seats in the elections for the 68 Assembly seats. The previous night I had sat with The Tribune Himachal Bureau and they had given me their estimates based on a detailed analysis of the 12 districts. They came up with a more conservative figure: 37-40 seats for the Congress.

The message though was clear: Prem Kumar Dhumal was not going to do what Parkash Singh Badal did in Punjab’s March 2012 Assembly polls — make history by having an incumbent government return to power — something that had not happened in Himachal for over a quarter of a century. As it turned out, The Tribune team was closer to the final tally of 36 seats that gave the Congress a simple majority to comfortably stake claim to form the government.

In his moment of expected triumph, Virbhadra Singh was cautious in naming who would be the next Chief Minister. He parroted the shibboleth that “Sonia Gandhi will decide”. But it was apparent then that Virbhadra Singh had his sights set on a record sixth term as Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh. He reminded us that one of his terms was more technical, as he was unable to prove that he enjoyed the confidence of the House in 1998.

The grand old man of Himachal politics — he turned 78 this June — knows that time is running out for him. He tells us that this would be the last time he was contesting polls. An alumnus of Bishop Cotton, Shimla, and St Stephen’s College, Delhi, Virbhadra Singh says he would then like to retire and read books or take long walks in Shimla. But that seems a distant dream, for even before the results are coming in he is talking about the priorities the state requires.

He makes it a point to state that he was handed the reins of the Himachal Pradesh Congress just a month before the elections, and was the only state leader who had visited most of the constituencies. It is evident that Virbhadra Singh has a finger on the pulse of the people and has emerged the man of the moment. By delivering a victory for the Congress, he averted a credibility crisis that the UPA government would have faced had it lost both Gujarat and Himachal.

He brushes aside critics’ charge that since he has corruption cases filed against him he should not be considered for the Chief Minister’s post. “Doesn’t Parkash Singh Badal have charges filed against him? The point is I have not been convicted in any of these cases.” He states he is willing to have fast-track investigations, including a CBI inquiry, into the charges he faces.

How did he outsmart his archrival Dhumal? He reels out the reasons: People were totally disenchanted with the BJP government, there was political corruption, there were many schools without teachers, hospitals without doctors and electricity projects had come to a standstill. He charges the Dhumal government with victimising opponents, including “foisting false cases on me”. He then says magnanimously, “I will not carry out vendetta or vindictive politics.”

What would he do if elected Chief Minister? Without hesitation, he says, “I will clean up the stables — there is a huge mess the BJP has left behind and it needs a large broom.” He ticks off his priorities: construction of roads; improvement of health care and ensuring there is sufficient staff and equipment in state hospitals and health centres; sprucing up the social network; and eradicating corruption by setting up special courts with time-bound judgments. In the same breath, he mentions how the previous government did not adhere to the strict land laws or to the rule that 70 per cent of the jobs in a new industrial unit should go to residents of the state.

It is evident that there is much to be done in Himachal and Virbhadra Singh has clearly indicated that he is the man for the job. The Congress high command is aware of the clout he has in the state, and though some of his chelas have lost at the hustings, he could become a rallying point for dissidents. That is why he has been made Chief Minister. Virbhadra knew it, and that morning, before the results were announced, he was already smiling as the cat that licked the cream.

raj@tribunemail.com