Congress appoints two working presidents in Himachal

Tribune News Service

Shimla March 27

Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections and six Assembly by-polls on June 1, the Congress today appointed MLAs Sanjay Awasthy and Chander Shekhar as working presidents of the Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC).

While Awasthy, a second-term MLA from Arki in Solan district, is the loyalist of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, Chander Shekhar, a first-time MLA from Dharampur Assembly segment in Mandi district, too is considered close to the CM. Incidentally, he is the lone Congress MLA in Mandi district where BJP won nine of the 10 seats in the 2022 Assembly polls.

The appointment of working president is being viewed as an attempt to galvanise party workers with an eye on not just the Lok Sabha elections to the four seats of Mandi, Shimla, Kangra and Hamirpur but more importantly for the six assembly by-polls, the outcome of which will decide the fate of the Sukhu regime.

Prior to the Assembly polls in 2022, the AICC had appointed four working presidents — Harsh Mahajan, Rajinder Rana, Pawan Kajal and Vinay Kumar. While the first three joined the BJP before the Assembly polls, Vinay is the Deputy Speaker of the Vidhan Sabha. Mahajan won the Rajya Sabha seat on the BJP ticket last month and Kajal contested on the 2022 Assembly polls. Rana is now the BJP candidate for the bypoll from Sujanpur.

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