New Delhi: A day after the newly-elected Himachal Pradesh MLAs authorized the Congress president to name the new chief minister, more consultations were taking place between the AICC observers and the camps of various claimants to the top state government post, informed sources said on Saturday.
According to sources, the two AICC observers Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel and former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Hooda supervised the meeting of the newly-elected MLAs in Shimla in the presence of AICC in-charge Rajeev Shukla on Friday. The delegation was slated to return to Delhi on Saturday for further consultations with the party president before naming the new chief minister.
However, increased pressure from the camp of state unit chief Pratibha Singh, former state unit chief Sukhwinder Sukhu forced the AICC observers to hold more consultations with the two senior leaders on Saturday to come to a consensus. “Nothing is clear at present. The AICC observers are in Shimla. More consultations are taking place,” a senior AICC functionary involved in the process said.
According to party insiders, a section of the party believes that if Pratibha Singh, a Lok Sabha member from Mandi, is made the chief minister the party will have to go for two by-elections, one for the Mandi Lok Sabha seat and the other for the Shimla rural assembly seat. The Shimla rural assembly seat was won by her son Vikramaditya Singh, who has offered to vacate the seat so that her mother can get elected from there to the Himachal assembly.
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Pratibha Singh would need to win the assembly election if she is made the chief minister. Fearing that she may be sidelined in the race to the CM post, Pratibha Singh had reminded the AICC observers that the party had fought the assembly polls and got a majority of 40 out of 68 seats in the hill state only in the name of her husband and six term former chief minister Virbhadra Singh.
It would be hard for the AICC managers to ignore the legacy of Virbhadra Singh, said party insiders, noting that the MLAs who are loyal to the Pratibha Singh camp have suggested her name. However, the AICC observers also need to keep in mind the fact that the number of MLAs who backed former state unit chief Sukhu during the CLP meeting on Friday and later during the one-on-one interactions with the MLAs outnumbered the supporters of Pratibha Singh.
As the CLP meeting was taking place in Shimla on Friday, the supporters of Pratibha Singh had gathered outside the venue and raised slogans in her favour. The only saving grace in the power tussle between Pratibha Singh and Sukhu is that both belong to the influential Thakur community, which usually gets a preference when it comes to naming a chief minister.
For most parts in the past decades, Virbhadra Singh was the Congress chief minister and the party’s 2022 campaign heavily banked on the work done during his rule. However, if the choice shifts to a Brahmin, former CLP leader Mukesh Agnihotri could be the dark horse though some sections also see a possibility in Sudhir Sharma, the sources said.
