Pain after Himachal gain: Fulfilling promises to be a challenge for new CM

Fund crunch may come in the way of infrastructure development; women's safety another issue that will be in focus

With no clarity on who will be chief minister of Himachal Pradesh, the challenges for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in running this state are going to be colossal. The BJP parliamentary board will meet on Monday night to decide.

Towards the end of the campaign, Prem Kumar Dhumal was announced as the party’s chief ministerial face. Many in the party had celebrated. Although, at 75, Dhumal was seen as an interim chief minister, he was also seen as a uniting factor, a senior in the faction-ridden BJP. 

No one had expected him to lose his Sujanpur seat to Congress’s Rajinder Rana.