The numbers are flying — and Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu wants voters to know exactly where to look. On Friday, 23 October 2026, the Congress chief minister launched a pointed counter-attack against opposition leader Jairam Thakur, arguing that the BJP veteran is conveniently erasing his own government's debt record from the public conversation.

Sukhu's post, written in Hindi, states directly: 'विपक्ष के नेता जयराम ठाकुर जी कहते हैं कि प्रदेश पर 1,20,000 करोड़ रुपये का कर्ज हो गया है' — 'Opposition leader Jairam Thakur says the state has accumulated a debt of ₹1,20,000 crore. But he has forgotten the debt taken during his own tenure. He is adding the debt from his time to ours.'

The ₹76,633 crore inheritance Sukhu says he walked into

The CM's central claim is specific: when the Congress government took office in December 2022, it inherited a state debt of ₹76,633 crore. That, he argues, is the fiscal baseline his administration was handed — not a number it created. The implication is blunt: any honest accounting of Himachal Pradesh's current debt must separate what was already on the books from what the present government has added.

Sukhu goes further, drilling into the Jairam Thakur-led BJP government's five-year tenure from 2017-18 to 2022-23, asserting that it borrowed ₹43,261 crore during that period alone. That single figure, he suggests, is the real story behind the headline debt number Thakur is now citing as an indictment of the Congress administration.

A debt-blame game with a long history in Shimla

This exchange is a well-worn pattern in Himachal Pradesh's political cycle. Congress and BJP have alternated in power in the hill state since the 1990s, and each incoming government has made 'inherited debt' a cornerstone of its early political messaging. What makes this round sharper is the specificity of the figures — names attached to rupee amounts, year-ranges cited, a clear cause-and-effect sequence laid out for public consumption.

The research note flags that the precise debt figures cited in the post fall outside independently verified public record. The government's own finance department data and any forthcoming Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) reports on the state's debt stock will be the definitive reference point when they arrive.

Until then, Jairam Thakur — the Leader of Opposition and the man who governed Himachal Pradesh from 2017 to 2022 — faces a direct numerical challenge from the man who replaced him. The BJP has not yet publicly responded to today's figures.

The next state budget will either validate or complicate Sukhu's arithmetic — and both sides know it.