The BJP makes a great effort to appease the irate leaders of Himachal
After leading the way at the start of the election campaign, the BJP is making every effort to appease its irate leaders, while Congress leaders and party employees are becoming concerned about the length of time it is taking to finalize its candidates.
The Congress’s protracted process of selecting its nominees for the six Assembly bypolls, the two Lok Sabha seats of Kangra and Hamirpur, and other positions has given the BJP plenty of room to court its dissatisfied leaders back into the fold.
Lakhvinder Rana, a former party MLA from Nalagarh, was named the BJP state spokesman today by state BJP president Rajeev Bindal. Rana had run a losing campaign in the 2022 Assembly election against KL Thakur, a BJP renegade who has since been admitted into the party. Rana was upset that the BJP was bringing Thakur back because, should Thakur’s resignation be accepted, it would prevent him from running in the Assembly by-election.
Shaswat Kapoor, the son of Kangra-based BJP MP Kishan Kapoor, who is standing for election, was named state vice president of Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) today. Kapoor has publicly expressed his dissatisfaction at not even being contacted in selecting the Lok Sabha candidate for Kangra. In addition, Kapoor was certain that his son should have been given a chance to run in the Assembly by-election because he was not given a ticket for the Lok Sabha.
The two appointments are obviously an effort on the part of the BJP to appease politicians who were not thrilled with the saffron ticket being handed to six Congress dissidents who were inducted into the party.
The BJP is making an effort to win over former minister Ram Lal Markanda, who is running on the Congress ticket from Lahaul and Spiti’s tribal Assembly seat in the bypoll. He has kept his distance from the BJP so far in the hopes of obtaining the Congress ticket, which is still pending.
However, Congressmen are looking forward to the announcement of the final ballots for the two Lok Sabha and the six Assembly by-elections. Pratibha Singh, the head of the Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC), said today that the tickets would be decided upon as soon as possible. “Tickets will be announced soon after a series of consultations to ensure that the best candidate is fielded,” she said.
A few BJP dissidents, such as Markanda from Lahaul Spiti and former BJP MP Virender Kashyap from the Shimla (reserved) parliamentary constituency, were being considered by the Congress for possible candidacies. A portion of the leadership, however, is against the plan because they believe it would undermine party cadres.
