Dharamsala: Posturing at the onset of a grueling election campaign, chief minister Virbhadra Singh held out that congress would win all the four Lok Sabha seats in Himachal saying senior BJP leader Shanta Kumar was not invincible as he had earlier also ost two parliamentary elections from Kangra seat itself.
Talking to reporters, he said, “Congress will fight elections on the failure of previous BJP government in state and about their agenda of having put HP on sale.”
“The Congress high command has fielded all winning candidates for the four seats in Himachal,” he said adding, “though there had been some delay in the announcing the candidates but there was enough time for the campaign.”
When quizzed about old guard BJP’s stalwart leader Mr Shanta Kumar being in the fray, Virbhadra Singh responded, “He is no super leader. Shanta Kumar has been defeated twice in MP elections earlier too.”
He said that Himachal was created and made a state by congress governments. “Hamare pass himachal me kaam karne ka lamba anubhav hae, is adhaar par is baar bhi congress himachal me jeetegi,” he added.
Congress has fielded sitting MP and wife of CM ,Mrs Pratibha Singh from Mandi, ex MP and OBC leader Mr Chander Kumar from Kangra, green horn Mr Rajinder Rana, who only yesterday joined the Congress party after resigning from the state assembly as an independent MLA, from Hamirpur and another green horn Mr Mohan Lal Bragta from Shimla constituency.
Virbhadra Singh was here in connection with reviewing arrangements of Rahul Gandhi’s rally that is scheduled to be held on 20 March at the Police Stadium.
Arvind Sharma is an award winning bi-lingual journalist with more than 20 years of experience.
He has worked with Divya Himachal, Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhasker, Vir Partap, Ajit and PTI.
In 2010, he was conferred the Himachal Kesri journalism award. He reports on the Tibetan Government in Exile, politics, sports, tourism and other topics. He lives in Dharamshala.
