Former Himachal Pradesh minister quits BJP after party gives tickets to Congress rebels

Ram Lal Markanda is the frontrunner for the BJP candidate from Lahaul and Spiti. (document)

Shimla:

Former Himachal Pradesh minister and BJP leader from Lahaul and Spiti assembly constituency Ram Lal Markanda quit the party on Tuesday in protest against the Congress which defeated him in the last assembly elections The advent of rebel Ravi Thakur.

Hours after the Bharatiya Janata Party announced the disqualification of all six former Congress MPs from the House of Representatives, Ram Lal Markanda quit the party and announced that he would contest the bypolls from Rahul and Spiti, Possible as Congress candidate.

All officials of the BJP’s Rahul and Spiti block units also resigned over the party’s decision and pledged support to Ram Lal Markanda, saying they would support him in the by-elections.

Ram Lal Markanda was the Agriculture and Tribal Development Minister during the previous BJP government led by Jai Ram Thakur. He lost the 2022 Assembly elections to then Congress MP Ravi Thakur by a margin of 1,542 votes.

Ram Lal Markanda is the frontrunner for the BJP candidate from Lahaul and Spiti. Congress rebel Ravi Thakur resigned from the BJP after he was included in the BJP’s assembly list through constituency polls.

The Himachal Pradesh Assembly by-elections will be held on June 1, along with elections to the state’s four Lok Sabha seats – Hamirpur, Shimla, Mandi and Kangra.

“I have left the BJP today along with my supporters and will definitely contest the assembly elections,” he told PTI over the phone.

Ram Lal Markanda said the core committees of Lahaul and Spiti have met tonight to work out future strategies.

He said it was unfortunate that the BJP had accommodated these people who were against reservation and had insulted Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the past.

“I will definitely contest the assembly elections from the polls. There is a possibility that I will contest from the Congress party,” he said.

“My people want me to contest elections for the development of Rahul and Spiti,” he said.

In an interview to PTI, BJP leader and former rural development and panchayat minister Virender Kanwar also expressed disapproval over the party’s choice of Congress rebel Devind Kumar Bhutto (Devinder Kumar Bhutto) took over his grievance. Bhutto was a first-time MP from Kutlehar.

“The party is above all else but the people of my constituency are disappointed and want the party’s decisions reviewed with a fresh survey on popularity in the region. Bhutto has been working like a dictator for the past 15 months and has The support is lost. The goodwill of the people,” he added.

At the same time, Ranjit Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party, who lost to Rajendra Rana of the Congress Party by 399 votes in the 2022 Assembly elections, also announced his candidacy as an independent candidate.

“In the Lok Sabha elections, I will support the BJP candidate Union Minister Anurag Singh Thakur, but in the by-elections, I will contest as an independent candidate,” he said. Chief Minister Su Talking to the media, Hvinder Singh Suhu also said that some BJP leaders, including Ram Lal Markanda and Rakesh Kha, the BJP leader from Gargret Leah, is contacting Congress.

Both Ram Lal Markanda and Kalia lost the 2022 assembly elections.

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday fielded assembly candidates from polls in several states and fielded six MLAs from the seats they held as MPs before being disqualified.

Thakur, a two-time legislator, was chairman of the state Congress Sevadar and vice-chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes.

Apart from Ravi Thakur from Lahore and Spiti, the BJP has also nominated Sudhir Sharma from Dharamshala, Rajinder Rana from Sujanpur , Inder Dutt Lakhanpal from Barsar, Chetaniya Sharma from Gargret and Devinder Kumar Bhutto from Kutlhar.

On March 23, all six Congress dissidents defected to the BJP, nearly a month after they were removed from Himachal for defying the party whip by attending the House and voting for the government during the cuts motion and budget. Eligibility for State Assembly. .

The six MLAs and three independents voted in favor of BJP nominee Harsh Mahajan in the state assembly elections held on February 27, triggering a crisis for the Congress-led government in the state.

The ruling party’s strength in the 68-member parliament dropped from 40 to 34 with the disqualification of six MPs, including the speaker, who can only vote in the event of a tie in the lower house test. The BJP has 25 members in the House of Representatives.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)