Having lost the Rajya Sabha poll in Himachal Pradesh in a surprising turn of events in 2024 despite being the ruling party, the Congress this time tread cautiously and unexpectedly declared Kangra District Congress Committee president Anurag Sharma as its Rajya Sabha candidate at the eleventh hour on Thursday morning. It was the last day for filing nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha seat that fell vacant after the completion of BJP leader Indu Goswami’s tenure.
Sharma, a new face, filed his nomination papers in the afternoon in the presence of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, Congress state president Vinay Kumar, Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri and other senior leaders at Vidhan Sabha in Shimla.
The BJP, which kept a close watch on the Congress strategy till the last moment, did not field any candidate this time. In the previous Rajya Sabha election, however, the BJP had pulled off a surprise win through cross-voting, triggering major mess within the Congress party. The political mess had ultimately led to the disqualification of six Congress MLAs for defying the party whip in the Vidhan Sabha. By-elections followed, and the disqualified MLAs contested on BJP tickets. The Congress eventually regained its original tally of 40 seats, the number it had won in the 2022 Assembly elections, in the 68-member House.
While the choice of Sharma came as a surprise for everyone in the Congress, especially when senior leaders like Anand Sharma and Pratibha Singh were believed to be in the race. Anurag Sharma himself said he could hardly believe it when he received a call from the All India Congress Committee (AICC) office in Delhi during Holi celebrations on Wednesday.
“When they told me to keep my papers ready for nomination for Rajya Sabha election, it seemed like a dream to me. I had no idea that a grassroots worker like me could be picked up as a candidate for the prestigious Rajya Sabha seat. I am still not able to believe it,” Sharma told reporters in Shimla. He said that by recognising an ordinary Congress worker like him, national leaders Rahul Gandhi and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had set an example and boosted the morale of party workers across the country. He added that he would try to raise the voice of the state in the Rajya Sabha and work to ensure that the Congress wins all 15 Assembly seats in Kangra district in the 2027 state elections.
Sharma is believed to be a close confidant of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu in Himachal politics. It is being said that the move to get through with his loyalist Anurag Sharma’s candidature in the corridors of the high command, compared to heavyweights like former Union minister Anand Sharma and former MP Pratibha Singh, re-establishes Sukhu’s supremacy in the party despite the many challenges in the last three and a half years. The development will, however, go well with workers at the grassroots; the established leaders in Congress in Himachal may not take it in a positive stride.
Congress sources said the party’s decision to pick a candidate from Baijnath in Kangra district on the seat vacated by BJP’s Indu Goswami, who too hails from the same place in Kangra, is also aimed at giving a signal that the Congress party wants to take along this biggest district of the state in the run-up to the 2027 elections.
Congress has a strength of 40 and the BJP 28. In the 2024 Rajya Sabha poll for one seat, six Congress MLAs had cross-voted, helping the BJP nominee Harsh Mahajan win against the ruling party’s Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who was an outsider. This time, the state leadership had stressed that anyone from Himachal should be fielded.
Talking to media persons, Sukhu said the BJP could not repeat what it had done in the last Rajya Sabha poll because all the Congress MLAs at present have a strong ideology and they can’t be sold, like it happened earlier with some people. “They have already left now. None else is like them now,” he said. He thanked the national Congress leadership for giving precedence to a party worker from the organisation for the prestigious seat.
The state has three Rajya Sabha seats and two are presently occupied by the BJP. The four Lok Sabha seats were also won by BJP nominees in the 2024 Parliament elections.
Also read: ₹17-cr aid given to ex-servicemen, martyrs’ families: Sukhu
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