In a surprising move, the Congress on Tuesday fielded veteran leader and CWC member Anand Sharma as its candidate from Kangra Lok Sabha constituency in Himachal Pradesh. Satpal Raizada, a former Congress MLA from Una in Himachal Pradesh, has been fielded from Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat in the state and will contest the general elections against BJP candidate and Union Minister Anurag Thakur. .
This will be Sharma’s first Lok Sabha election. In 1982, he contested the Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections from Shimla but lost to Daulat Ram Chouhan of the BJP.
He was first elected Prime Minister of India in April 1984 and served four terms in the Senate. He was a Union Minister in the UPA government under Manmohan Singh and served as deputy Congress leader in Rajya Sabha until his retirement in 2022.
The decision to field Sharma, a leading member of the G23 parliamentary leadership group, comes after he wrote a letter to AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge questioning the party’s aggressive campaign promotion for conducting a caste census. It took place a month later.
Sharma wrote that the party has “never been involved in or supported identity politics” and that the departure from its “historic position” is a matter of concern to many within the party. Sharma was angry with his leadership for not fielding him from Himachal Pradesh in the recent Rajya Sabha elections.
The party overlooked him and fielded outsider Abhishek Singhvi, but the result was a fiasco with six Congress members and three independents supporting the government voting for the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate. It ended in a shocking defeat for Shinbi. Sharma will be facing state vice-president Rajiv Bhardwaj of the Bharatiya Janata Party from the Kangra seat. This time, the BJP has replaced sitting MP Kishan Kapoor with Bhardwaj. Mr. Kapoor had won the 2019 Sabah state election by a record margin of 477,000 votes.
Congress insiders say most of the party’s MLAs in the Vidhan Sabha holding Kangra assembly seats are close to Mr. Sharma. They suggested his name to Chief Minister Sukhbinder Singh Sukh, who in turn conveyed the name to the high command. His Brahmin background also played a role in his selection as Kangra candidate.
Sharma had reluctantly joined party activities ahead of the 2022 Himachal Pradesh assembly elections. He had earlier resigned from his post as chairman of the parliamentary management committee, citing dissatisfaction with his party’s work, claiming he was not consulted in decision-making.
Raizada, a candidate from Hamirpur, won the 2017 assembly elections and became an MLA for the first time. Mumbai Congress vice-president Patil will be running against Union Minister Piyush Goyal, the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate from the Mumbai North Lok Sabha seat, which is considered one of the party’s strongholds with a sizable Gujarati population. do.
The Congress has now announced candidates for all four seats in Himachal Pradesh. The party had already nominated Vikramaditya Singh as State Minister for Persons with Disabilities from Mandi Lok Sabha seat and party MLA Vinod Sultanpuri from Shimla.
© Indian Express Private Limited
Date first uploaded: January 5, 2024 11:55 IST
