By Manish Anand
New Delhi, February 28: Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukkhu has turned down the resignation of his ministerial colleague Vikramaditya Singh. The Congress has asserted that the party would defeat the ‘Operation Lotus’ allegedly hatched against the Sukkhu-led government in Shimla.
Facing an internal revolt, the Congress has rushed three crisis managers – Bhupesh Singh Baghel, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, and DK Shivakumar. These three Congress top crisis managers have been asked to help Vikramditya Singh vent out his angst against the chief minister and bring him on board to save the government. The BJP staged a coup in the Rajya Sabha elections to help the former Congress leader Harsh Mahajan defeat Abhishek Manu Singhvi of the ruling party by engineering cross-voting by nine MLAs of the Congress.
Vikramaditya Singh is the royal scion who had the aspirations to become the chief minister of the state if his mother was not given the post due to the age factor. He is the son of former state Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, who was popularly called ‘Raja’ in the hilly state.
Singh has gone all guns blazing against Sukkhu, who hails from a humble background. He has claimed that the party MLAs were being ignored. He has also alleged that Sukkhu failed to pay adequate respect to the legacy of his father.
The congress national general secretary, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, in a post on the social media platform X has accused the BJP of hatching conspiracy to “steal” the popular mandate. She has particularly mentioned the BJP being a party in the state with 25 MLAs while the Congress had won a total of 40 Assembly seats. The Congress also has support of three independent MLAs in the Assembly of 68 members.
But the Congress seems to have been caught napping in managing the affairs of the party in Himachal Pradesh despite knowing since the formation of the government that Vikramaditya Singh would pose a perennial challenge to Sukkhu. The BJP is also clearly aiming to clip the wings of the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha elections to expose the fragile equations within the main Opposition party. The saffron outfit is clearly sending out the message to the people that a party which cannot manage own affairs is not worthy of being seen as an alternative at the Centre.
The communication department chief of the Congress, Jairam Ramesh, was fuming at a reporter who asked if the party was aware of the deepening factionalism in Shimla and as a precaution sent party leader Sonia Gandhi to Rajasthan in place of Himachal Pradesh.
Subscribe: youtube.com/@TheRaisinaHills
Join: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaFAp9b60eBiuA8v1x0s
About The Author
