Himachal: Ticket aspirants line up in Cong camp for bypolls
Many names have started doing rounds within the Congress party which includes some previous candidates and former legislators as well
Buoyed by the recent win during by-elections, aspirants have started lining up in the race for the ticket after the Election Commission released the dates for the bypolls of the three assembly segments in Himachal.
Many names have started doing rounds within the Congress party which includes some previous candidates and former legislators as well. The by-election in three assembly segments – Dehra, Hamirpur and Nalagarh – will be held on July 10 and the results will be announced on July 13.
From Dehra, the name of Rajesh Sharma is doing rounds. Sharma, who is among those aspiring to get the ticket, had earlier contested assembly polls unsuccessfully from Dehra in 2022. The party sources also revealed Nardev Singh Kanwar, who is the chairman of the Himachal Pradesh Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board, is among those aspiring for the party ticket from Dehra.
In Hamirpur, the name of Pushpinder Verma has cropped up. He had lost to Independent candidate Ashish Sharma during the previous assembly elections. Names of Sunil Sharma (Bittu) who is the political advisor to chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu with cabinet rank and ex-MLA Kuldeep Singh Pathania, who is currently the chairman of Kangra Central Cooperative Bank (KCCB) are also doing rounds within the Congress camp.
Former MLA Lakhvinder Singh Rana and Hardeep Singh Bawa are among the Congress party ticket aspirants from Nalagarh assembly constituency. Rana won assembly polls from Nalagarh as Congress candidate in 2017 but had contested as the BJP candidate in 2022 assembly polls and lost. Party sources said that his close proximity with CM Sukhu might work in his favour this time. Earlier, Rana also won a by-election from Nalagarh seat in 2011 as Congress party candidate.
Hardeep Singh Bawa contested as Congress candidate in 2022 on Nalagarh seat but was defeated by KL Thakur who contested as an Independent.
Prem Koshal, the chief spokesperson of the Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee said, “The Independent MLAs cannot justify to the public why they resigned from the assembly. They could have easily supported any party and completed a five years term as per the mandate given by the public. The public will now answer them on July 10.”
With Congress winning four out of the six seats in the by-elections held on June 1, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will tread carefully in announcing their nominees for the upcoming three seats. The saffron party had faced rebillion after they fielded the six Congress rebels in recent bypolls from all the seats. It had led to former minster Ram Lal Markanda and Rakesh Chaudhry contesting as Independents from Lahaul and Spiti and Dharamshala respectively. Sanjay Sharma, BJP state spokesperson, said, “The party is geared up for the byelections and will approach this election with more seriousness to win all three seats. The party is likely to announce its candidates within a week.”
The byelections were necessitated following the resignation of the three Independent MLAs-- Hoshiyar Singh (Dehra), Ashish Sharma (Hamirpur) and KL Thakur (Nalagarh). All three had voted in favour of the BJP candidate, Harsh Mahajan, in the February 27 Rajya Sabha elections along with six rebel Congress MLAs who cross-voted.
Though the three MLAs resigned from the assembly on March 22, speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania accepted their resignations on June 3 after the Lok Sabha elections and six assembly bypolls were held simultaneously on June 1 in Dharamshala, Sujanpur, Barsar, Gagret, Kutlehar, and Lahaul and Spiti.
