A legacy and a burden

Pratibha Singh will inherit her husband's legacy, though its negative aspects might be a little bit moderate

It is a fact of life that in Indian politics, widows are best-placed to claim credit for their husbands — at times more than sons. And so it was that Pratibha Singh, the widow of former Himachal Pradesh chief minister and later Union minister, Virbhadra Singh, was last week made chief of the Himachal Pradesh unit of the Congress. The state goes to the polls in a couple of months and the party has high expectations.

Certainly, everyone in Himachal Pradesh knows Virbhadra: And his widow is no newbie in politics, either. She won the Mandi Lok Sabha constituency in