No Congress leader willing to contest Lok Sabha poll: Thakur

Tribune News Service

Solan, March 21

Leader of the Opposition Jai Ram Thakur today said that no Congress leader was ready to contest the Lok Sabha elections and the party had already conceded defeat.

He said, “HPCC president Pratibha Singh’s statement that she does not want to contest the election from Mandi as the environment is not conducive for it indicates simmering discontent in the ruling party. The Congress is finding it difficult to field candidates for the Lok Sabha elections. Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has been humiliating elected representatives. Ministers were leaving the Cabinet meeting in disgust while crying with Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri coaxing them to come back, thus indicating a sorry state of affairs in the party.”

Thakur, who was in Solan, said that the Chief Minister should not blame the BJP when he had failed to keep his MLAs together. Sukhu should accept his mistakes as blaming others won’t do him any good, he added.

He said that the poor state of affairs in the Congress was amply clear as senior leaders across the nation were resigning and joining the BJP and the NDA.

On the issue of six rebel Congress MLAs who had cross-voted for the BJP candidate in the Rajya Sabha poll, he said that they did not vote secretly but had displayed their ballot papers to the party’s polling agent. Since their grievances were neither heard nor addressed and they were repeatedly humiliated in the past 15 months, they were left with no option but to defy the party’s direction, he claimed.

Thakur said, “Sukhu is putting the blame on others for the pitiable state of affairs though it is the result of his own doing. For the past 15 months, the party president, workers and the MLAs have not been happy with his style of working.”

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