New Delhi: The Congress on Tuesday brought in Pratibha Singh, Lok Sabha MP and wife of former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, as the new Himachal Pradesh chief, months ahead of the Assembly polls. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, who made the key appointments, also finalised a string of other panels which will oversee preparations for the coming polls.
Pratibha Singh will be assisted by four working presidents, Harsh Mahajan, Rajender Rana, Pawan Kajal, and Vinay Kumar. Mukesh Agnihotri will continue to be the CLP leader while Harshwardhan Chauhan will be his deputy. Former state unit chief Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu will head the campaign committee for the coming polls. Jagat Singh Negi will be the chief whip in the assembly. Veteran Anand Sharma, who retired from the Rajya Sabha recently, will head the steering committee for the elections while senior leader Asha Kumari will be the convenor of the panel.
Party insiders said the revamp has been done to counter the ruling BJP and the emergence of AAP, which has become hopeful of expanding its footprint in the hill state following its recent sweep in neighbouring Punjab. Recently, Delhi chief minister and AAP founder Arvind Kejriwal made a strong pitch for his party in the state where he targeted both the Congress and the BJP. AAP plans to contest all the 68 assembly seats.
The sweeping changes have also been done to curb infighting in the state Congress unit and present a united face ahead of the crucial polls. The announcements on Tuesday followed intense consultations that AICC in-charge of Himachal Pradesh Rajiv Shukla had with Sonia Gandhi and AICC in-charge of Organization KC Venugopal.
There were several claimants for the post of Chief Minister including Mukesh Agnihotri and Sukhu. Others like Asha Kumari, RL Thakur, Harshwardhan Chauhan and Dhaniram Shandil too claimed they deserved the top post. After detailed deliberations, Sonia finally sided with Pratibha Singh, who replaced Kuldeep Singh Rathore. Pratibha, said party insiders, is the natural claimant of the legacy of the former Chief Minister, who remains the most popular Congress leader in the hill state.
Kuldeep Rathore got the charge in 2019. The new panels also reflect a balance in caste equations that the grand old party has tried to achieve in the hill state. The PCC chief, CLP leader and the campaign committee chief will be permanent invitees to the steering committee, the high command decided. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi also finalized various panels like the manifesto committee to be headed by veteran Dhaniram Shandil, the coordination committee headed by Kaul Singh Thakur, and the election management committee headed by Ram Lal Thakur.
The hill state will also have five senior vice presidents Ganguram Musafir, Inderdutt Lakhanpal, Sunder Singh Thakur, Ravi Thakur and Suresh Kumar and have six vice presidents including Sanjay Awasthi, Naresh Chauhan, Maheshwar Chauhan, Harish Janartha, Surender Chauhan and Mohinder Chauhan. Dr Rajesh Sharma will be the new treasurer.
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