Lok Sabha Election 2024: Worried over Infighting, Priyanka Wants Himachal Congress leaders to unite

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who led the Congress campaign for the 2022 Himachal Pradesh assembly polls, took stock of party affairs amid infighting. She asked state leaders to be united, avoid public spats against each other.

New Delhi:Concerned over factionalism in the Himachal Pradesh unit, senior Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has urged the state leaders to be united, avoid public spats against each other and fight the BJP together to win all the four Lok Sabha seats.

Priyanka, who led the Congress campaign for the 2022 Himachal Pradesh assembly polls, reviewed the national polls strategy along with AICC general secretary in charge of state Rajeev Shukla, chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, state unit chief Pratibha Singh, deputy chief minister Mukesh Agnihotri and other senior leaders on Saturday.

“We discussed the strategy for the Lok Sabha elections. Priyanka Gandhi wants the state team to be together in taking on the BJP. We all are going to work together and our target is to win all the four parliamentary seats in the state. Everyone should contribute to the party campaign which will focus on the failures of the Modi government over the past 10 years,” Himachal Pradesh Congress chief Pratibha Singh told ETV Bharat.

“To spread the message of the Congress manifesto, we will try to reach all the households over the coming weeks. The people had believed in the party’s social welfare guarantees in the assembly polls and voted us to power. They will also support us in the ensuing national polls,” she said.

The BJP had won all the four HP Lok Sabha seats Mandi, Kangra, Hamirpur and Shimla in 2019. Later, Pratibha Singh had won the Mandi Lok Sabha by-poll in 2021. Though the party plans to field new faces in the three seats, the consensus is on repeating Pratibha Singh in Mandi to counter BJP nominee actress Kangana Ranaut.

Of late, Pratibha Singh’s son and state minister Vikramaditya Singh has been regularly targeting Kangana fueling speculation that he may be named as Congress candidate from Mandi, a party stronghold.

Party insiders said the high command is in no hurry to name the candidates for the June 1 polling but admitted that ally AAP had been pestering them to finalize the nominees early to counter the BJP.

According to party insiders, besides the Lok Sabha polls, by-elections in six assembly seats on June 1 were also discussed in the strategy meeting chaired by Priyanka Gandhi.

Six Congress rebels who were expelled by the Assembly Speaker are now contesting the by-polls as BJP candidates. Crisis had hit the Sukhu government after the six rebel MLAs voted against party’s Rajya Sabha nominee Abhishek Manu Singhvi and helped the BJP nominee Harsha Mahajan win in a tie.

Factionalism in the state unit surfaced around the same time when PWD minister Vikramaditya Singh, son of Pratibha Singh and former chief minister Virbhadra Singh, resigned to protest Sukhu’s style of functioning. Vikramaditya later withdrew his resignation at the instance of AICC observer DK Shiv Kumar.

Of late, the chief minister has been regularly attacking the six rebels for ditching the Congress. After the chief minister alleged the six rebels had taken Rs 15 crore each from the BJP, one of them Sudhir Sharma has filed a defamation suit against Sukhu. Party insiders said the bribe details are emerging from an ongoing police probe and the rebels will be further exposed.

“We will win all the four Lok Sabha seats and the six assembly by-polls,” AICC secretary in charge of Himachal Tajinder Pal Singh told ETV Bharat.

Congress Working Committee member and former union minister Anand Sharma, who had recently written a letter to all senior leaders over the caste census issue, also attended the Himachal Pradesh review meeting, said party insiders.

Ahead of the 2022 assembly polls, Sharma had complained to the high command that he was being ignored by the new state unit headed by Pratibha Singh, then CLP leader Mukesh Agnihotri and then campaign committee chief Sukhvinder Sukhu. Later, Sharma was pacified by the state leaders who involved him in the poll process and are expected to follow suit in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls.