Issue of Kangra district division crops up again

Dharamsala, July 5

The issue of the division of Kangra district has cropped up again with Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu announcing the opening of a Superintendent of Police (SP) office in Dehra subdivision. If an SP office comes up in Dehra subdivision, the district will have three police districts, including Nurpur and Kangra.

Dehra likely to be Third police dist

• If an SP office comes up in Dehra subdivision, Kangra district will have three police districts, including Nurpur and Kangra
• The previous BJP government had opened an SP office in Nurpur subdivision of Kangra on the plea that the area bordering Punjab was facing a drug problem that could only be tackled by forming a police district

The election campaign is in full steam for the Dehra Assembly byelection where Chief Minister’s wife Kamlesh Thakur is the Congress candidate.

It is not for the first time that the idea of the division of Kangra district has been mooted. The previous BJP government had opened an SP office in Nurpur subdivision of Kangra on the plea that the area bordering Punjab was facing the drug problem that could only be tackled with the formation of a police district.

Being the biggest district in terms of population, Kangra has always been politically significant. During the BJP regime from 1998 to 2003, the then Chief Minister PK Dhumal had made the first attempt to divide Kangra.

Just before the 2003 Assembly elections, the then Chief Minister had made Additional Deputy Commissioners sit in Palampur, Nurpur and Dehra subdivisions, floating the idea that Kangra could be divided into smaller districts. However, the move did not yield electoral benefits for the BJP, as it lost the elections and the next Congress government discontinued the offices of ADCs in the said subdivisions.

Kangra is the biggest district of the state in terms of population. It has 15 Assembly segments and plays a crucial role in the formation of government. Data reveals that whichever political party wins nine or 10 seats in Kangra forms government in the state. In the 2022 Assembly elections, the Congress won 10 seats in the district and formed government.

The district sends 15 of the 68 MLAs to the Himachal Pradesh Assembly, so the issue of giving an adequate representation to Kangra in the government has always been raised. Successive Chief Ministers of the Congress and the BJP have faced dissent in the district over the alleged bias against Kangra. They have always felt threat from prominent leaders of Kangra who considered themselves contenders for the Chief Minister’s post. Sukhu had also faced criticism for not giving adequate representation to Kangra in his Cabinet.

Despite the division, Kangra is still politically the most significant district of the state that makes leaders from smaller districts, who get to highest post sin the state, insecure. The BJP has termed the announcement of opening an SP office in Dehra as an election gimmick but it has not opposed the idea.