Ahead of the Assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh, the grand old party appointed Pratibha Virbhadra Singh as President of the Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee.
Pratibha, the wife of former Himachal Pradesh chief minister late Virbhadra Singh, is currently a Lok Sabha MP from the Mandi constituency. Senior leader Mukesh Agnihotri has been retained as the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi also appointed former Union minister Anand Sharma as the chairman of the Steering Committee for the Himachal Pradesh Congress, with Asha Kumari as its convenor, while former Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu was appointed as the chairman of the Campaign Committee.
Earlier on Thursday, Pratibha Singh had launched a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) saying that Congress is not concerned about them campaigning ahead of the state polls.
“The Congress Party in Himachal Pradesh is not worried about BJP’s national president JP Nadda’s roadshow and the Aam Aadmi Party Arvind Kejriwal’s rally in Kangra district”, she had said.
“Congress will focus on the key issues of the public. This will not have an impact on the upcoming Assembly elections in the state even if the BJP’s or AAP’s national presidents’ campaign,” the Mandi MP had added.
Himachal polls scheduled later this year
The reshuffle in Himachal Pradesh Congress assumes importance as elections in the state are scheduled to be held later this year. In the last assembly polls, the BJP had won 43 seats in the 68-member assembly.
The BJP’s winning trend continued in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls as well and it had won all three seats in the state. The party has, however, recently suffered several setbacks in recent by-polls including in the Mandi Lok Sabha election.
