With the Parliamentary election and six byelections coming up in the month of June, the ruling Congress party in Himachal Pradesh has sharpened its attack on the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), as both parties engage in a direct electoral battle in the hill State.
Hitting out at the BJP, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on May 10 accused the former Chief Minister and current Leader of the Opposition Jairam Thakur of indulging in politics of ‘regional bias’ and ‘corruption’ during the BJP regime.
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Mr. Sukhu, who accompanied Congress candidate Satpal Raizada for the submission of his nomination papers for the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat, addressed a rally in Hamirpur, where he accused the previous BJP government of being involved in “huge corruption”. “Jobs in the government sector weren’t merely sold but auctioned. Due to rampant corruption in the Hamirpur Subordinate Staff Selection Commission, we had to disband this entity after forming the government,” he said.
He also alleged that the Jai Ram Thakur-led government deliberately neglected the development work in the Hamirpur district because of the regional bias towards its people.
Mr. Raizada, a former MLA from the Una Assembly segment is facing Union Minister Anurag Thakur of the BJP in the Hamirpur Parliamentary constituency.
Byelections to six Assembly constituencies in Himachal Pradesh are supposed to be held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha poll on June 1. The byelections were necessitated after six seats fell vacant following the disqualification of six Congress MLAs from the State Legislative Assembly for defying a party whip. Later, all the six Congress rebels joined the BJP and are now contesting as BJP candidates in the byelections. They were all elected as Congress MLAs in the 2022 Assembly election.
Across the State, on the fourth day of filing nominations, 18 candidates filed their nomination papers for the Lok Sabha and Assembly byelections, according to the State Election Department.
