Ram Lal Markanda was the frontrunner for the BJP ticket from Lahaul and Spiti. (File)
Shimla:
Former Himachal Pradesh minister and BJP leader from Lahaul and Spiti constituency, Ram Lal Markanda, quit the party on Tuesday to protest against the action of Congress rebel Ravi Thakur, who had defeated him from the seat in the last Assembly elections.
Hours after the BJP announced assembly tickets for all six former Congress MLAs disqualified from the House of Representatives, Ram Lal Markanda quit the party and announced that he will contest the bypoll from Lahaul and Spiti, possibly as a Congress candidate.
All office bearers of the Lahaul and Spiti block unit of the BJP also resigned against the party’s decision and pledged their support to Ram Lal Markanda, saying they will support him in the by-elections.
Ram Lal Markanda was Minister of Agriculture and Tribal Development during the previous BJP government led by Jai Ram Thakur. He had lost the 2022 Assembly elections to Ravi Thakur, who was then in Congress, by a margin of 1542 votes.
Ram Lal Markanda was the frontrunner for the BJP ticket from Lahaul and Spiti. He resigned from the BJP after Congress rebel Ravi Thakur was named in the BJP list for parliamentary elections from the assembly constituency.
The Himachal Pradesh Assembly bypolls will be held on June 1 along with the election to the four Lok Sabha seats in the state – Hamirpur, Shimla, Mandi and Kangra.
“I have left the BJP today along with my supporters and would definitely contest the Assembly elections,” he told PTI over phone.
A meeting of the core committee of Lahaul and Spiti has been convened this evening to chalk out the future strategy, Ram Lal Markanda said.
It is unfortunate that the BJP is inducting such people who are against reservations and have abused Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the past, he said.
“I will definitely contest the Assembly elections. There is a possibility that I will contest from the Congress party,” he said.
“My people want me to contest elections for the development of Lahaul and Spiti,” he said.
Speaking to PTI, BJP leader and former Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Minister Virender Kanwar also expressed his displeasure over the party that has chosen Congress rebel Devinder Kumar Bhutto, a first-time MLA from Kutlehar, in his place.
“The party is above all else, but the people of my constituency are disappointed and want the party’s decision to be reviewed by conducting a new survey of popularity in the area. Bhutto has been working as a dictator for the past fifteen months and has lost power. goodwill of the people,” he added.
Meanwhile, BJP’s Ranjit Singh, who lost to Congress’ Rajendra Rana by a margin of 399 votes in the 2022 Assembly elections, has also announced that he will contest as an independent candidate.
He said, “In the Lok Sabha elections, I will support BJP candidate Union Minister Anurag Singh Thakur, but in the by-elections, I will contest as an independent candidate.” Talking to media here, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu also said that some BJP leaders including Ram Lal Markanda and BJP leader from Gagret Rakesh Kalia are in touch with the Congress.
Both Ram Lal Markanda and Kalia had lost the 2022 parliamentary elections.
The BJP on Tuesday named its candidates for the assembly elections in several states and fielded the six MLAs from the seats they occupied as Congress members before their disqualification.
Thakur is a two-time lawmaker and has served as president of the state Congress Seva Dal and vice-chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes.
Besides Ravi Thakur from Lahaul and Spiti, the BJP nominated Sudhir Sharma from Dharamshala, Rajinder Rana from Sujanpur, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal from Barsar, Chetanya Sharma from Gagret and Devinder Kumar Bhutto from Kutlehar.
All six Congress dissidents switched to the BJP on March 23, almost a month after they were disqualified from the Himachal Pradesh Assembly for defying a party whip to be present in the House of Representatives and vote for the government amid austerity and budget. .
These six MLAs and three independents had voted in favor of BJP nominee Harsh Mahajan in the Rajya Sabha elections held in the state on February 27, creating a crisis for the Congress-led government in the state.
With the disqualification of the six Congress MLAs, the strength of the ruling party has fallen from 40 to 34, including the Speaker who can vote only in the event of a tie during a floor test in the 68-member Assembly. The BJP has 25 members in the House of Representatives.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by WhatsNew2Day staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)