One year after joining Congress, former Raj minister Deepak Joshi back in BJP
After joining the Congress, Joshi had made several allegations against Shivraj Singh Chouhan. He had even charged the saffron party with ruining the Jansangh’s legacy.
Congress played it safe by clearing the tried and tested names in the first list of candidates for the 46 seats of the 68 Assembly constituencies for the upcoming Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly polls on Monday except for seven seats where new faces have been fielded.
The list included 19 sitting MLAs while there are just three women so far.
The new faces included former state president Kuldeep Singh Rathore from Theog, state general secretary Rajneesh Kimta from Chopal, Vivek Kumar from Jhanduta, Yashwant Singh Khanna from Churah, former BJP state president Khimi Ram from Banjar, Dayal Pyari from Pachhad, and former minister GS Bali’s son RS Bali from Nagrota.
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No announcement has been made from Kangra and Nalagarh as the party’s sitting MLAs-Pawan Kajal and Lakhwinder Rana- have already defected to the BJP. From Kinnaur (ST) seat, sitting MLA Jagat Singh Negi’s name is yet to be cleared as he is facing opposition from Youth Congress leader Nigam Bhandari.
The prominent names in the first list included CLP leader Mukesh Agnihotri from Haroli, Asha Kumari from Dalhousie, Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu from Nadaun and Kaul Singh Thakur from Darang.
Former CM Virbhadra Singh’s son Vikramditya Singh will contest for the second time from Shimla Rural.
Chet Ram Thakur has again pitted against Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur.
Interestingly, Kaul Singh Thakur’s daughter Champa Thakur would contest again from Mandi Sadar. Last time, she had lost to Sukh Ram’s son Anil Sharma.
The maximum number of names in the first list are loyalists of Virbhadra Singh.
For the remaining seats, there are multiple contenders and still deliberations are underway.
The prominent names among these included Shimla, Bharmour, Indora, Dehra, Jaisinghpur, Sullah, Kangra, Manali, Anni, Karsog, Nachan, Jogindernagar, Dharampur, Sarkaghat, Hamirpur, Chintpurni, Gagret, Kutlehar, Bilaspur, Nalagarh, and Paonta Sahib.
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