shimla the year 2022 wrote a new chapter in the politics of himachal pradesh as the bjp failed to continue its winning streak while the congress bounced back to power despite intense campaigning by the saffron party top brass including prime minister narendra modithe congress victory also ushered in a new era in the hill state with sukhvinder singh sukhu rising to the post of chief minister and mukesh agnihotri occupying the chair of deputy chief ministerbefore the elections the bjp was confident of winning over 40 seats however when results were announced the saffron party ended up with just 25 seats while the congress bagged 40 seats and formed the government three seats went to independentsafter winning the assembly elections in uttarakhand uttar pradesh manipur and goa the bjp was confident of regaining power in himachal the party under its national president jp nadda who hails from himachal pradesh put in its entire might including pm modi and home minister amit shah to wrest the state but the electorate went for the change bjps defeat in himachal also put a question mark on naddas leadership as he could not maintain the winning streak of the party in his backyardwrong distribution of tickets factionalism ignoring former chief minister prem kumar dhumal not addressing the issue of the old pension scheme and failure to pacify rebels were some of the reasons for the bjps defeatthe bjp is busy doing the postmortem of defeat and former chief minister jai ram thakur recently met modi in new delhi and gave him feedback on the assembly electionsthe congress was also a divided house with one faction led by sukhvinder singh sukhu while the other stood behind state party president pratibha singh however the party was able to put up a joint front in the elections under the leadership of priyanka gandhi vadraafter the results the battle for chief ministerial post began with sukhvinder singh sukhu mukesh agnihotri and pratibha singh in the running for the top job when the central observers were meeting the newly elected mlas to decide the name of chief minister the supporters of pratibha singh raised slogans against sukhu and congress high command demanding to appoint pratibha singh as the chief ministerbut instead of bowing to the pressure tactics of pratibha singh the party high command decided in favour of sukhu who enjoyed the support of maximum mlas sukhvinder singh and mukesh agnihotri took oath as the chief minister and deputy chief minister respectively on december 11 but till date the party has not been able to decide the state cabinet due to intense lobbying by the warring factionsdeviating from the past where the cabinet used to collectively review the decisions of the previous regime sukhu and mukesh have already started reviewing the decisions taken by the previous bjp government in the last nine months the decision of opening new circles and divisions in electricity and public works departments have already been denotified while the decision to upgrade or