Chopal Vikas Manch’s merger with BJP sets tongues wagging

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, March 26

The merger of Chopal Vikas Manch floated by Independent MLA from Chopal Balbir Verma with the BJP has set tongues wagging.

Verma, along with some other MLAs, had become associate members of the Congress Legislature Party after he was elected MLA in the 2012 Assembly poll and the BJP had then filed a petition before the Speaker on September 2, 2014, seeking their disqualification under the anti-defection law. The party, in its petition, had sought their disqualification on the ground that they had become associate members of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) and had issued statements supporting the government.

The MLAs, on the other hand, in their reply, had stated that they had only extended outside support to the Congress regime and had not become its associate members. They had pleaded that their seats were separate in the Assembly and they were not Congress members as being claimed by the BJP.

However, it was altogether a different scene at Chopal where Verma announced the merger. The Chopal Assembly constituency has a history of electing Independent MLAs, who normally joined the Congress. It is for the first time that an Independent MLA has decided to join the BJP. Earlier, in the 1967 poll, Kewal Ram Chauhan won as an Independent and later joined the Congress and was re-elected as the Congress candidate in 1972. Radha Raman Shashtri won as the Janata Party candidate in 1977, but Kewal Ram Chauhan wrested the seat in 1982 and 1985, Chauhan again contested as an Independent and lost to Yogendra Chand of the Congress. Radha Raman Shashtri was elected as the BJP candidate in 1990, but in 1993, Yogendra Chand won as an Independent, joined the Congress and again won as the Congress candidate in 1998.

Again, Subhash Chand Manglate won as an Independent in 2003, joined the Congress and was re-elected as the Congress candidate in 2007, but was defeated by Balbir Verma, who entered the fray as an Independent in 2012 and announced to merge his Vikas Manch with the BJP after supporting the Congress government for more than four years.