Himachal Pradesh Leader of Opposition Jairam Thakur of the BJP on Thursday called for the resignation of Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu, stating that the Congress government lacks a mandate following Lok Sabha election results 2024.
The BJP won all four Lok Sabha constituencies in Himachal Pradesh and Thakur said the party secured leads in 61 of 68 Assembly segments, including Sukhu’s home turf, Nadaun.
Taking a dig at Sukhu and Congress leaders, Thakur said, “I will not say much, but those who said that director Jairam Thakur’s film will flop are now silent. They don’t have much to say.” Congress leaders had attacked the BJP’s Mandi candidate Kangana Ranaut, saying her movie “written and directed by Thakur would flop in the box office”. (https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/chandigarh/kangana-mandi-congress-vikramaditya-singh-9317919/) Ranaut won by a margin of 74755 votes against the Congress candidate Vikramaditya Singh.
Terming the Mandi parliamentary election one of the toughest contests, where the state Congress government had invested all its machinery in the campaign, Thakur, the former chief minister said, “Despite all odds, our party candidate Kangna Ranaut won with a record margin. PWD Minister Vikramaditya Singh, who has a legacy in Mandi, which was once part of his erstwhile estate, has deep roots in the Mandi constituency. People of Mandi preferred to elect our party candidate.”
The Congress won four out of six seats in Assembly bypolls, gaining a comfortable majority in the 68-member House, whose actual strength came down to 65 after the resignations of three Independents were accepted. With the four seats, the Congress tally in the Assembly went up from 34 to 38. The two new seats the BJP won took its tally from 25 to 27.
The Congress government faced rebellion and instability in February after the Rajya Sabha election in which six Congress MLAs voted for the BJP and later switched sides, forcing the bypolls.
Thakur, however, said that merely winning four bypoll seats does not mean CM Sukhu’s state government is stable. “The matter concerning the six Chief Parliamentary Secretaries (CPSs) is pending in the Himachal Pradesh High Court. After the vacations, the high court will announce its decision, which will go against the six Congress MLAs who were given CPS ranks.”
On the question of why the BJP lost four by-polls, Thakur said, “We have also won two by-polls in Dharamshala (Sudhir Sharma) and Barsar (Inder Dutt Lakhanpal). The reasons why we lost four bypolls will be reviewed.”
When asked if the defeat in bypolls should be seen as a failure of ‘Operation Lotus,’ Jairam Thakur said, “There is no ‘Operation Lotus’ in Himachal Pradesh. The Congress had humiliated its MLAs. A minister came running out of a cabinet meeting while crying. Tears were rolling down his face. The BJP was not responsible for this. These adverse circumstances forced Congress MLAs to leave Congress and join the BJP.”
In response to whether the BJP would give tickets to three Independent candidates – Hoshyar Singh, Ashish Sharma, and KL Thakur – whose resignations were accepted a day before the Lok Sabha election results were announced, Thakur said, “These three Independent MLAs have been associated with the BJP in many ways. The final decision will be taken by the high command.”
Meanwhile, Thakur blamed CM Sukhu for putting an approximate Rs 30 crore burden on the state exchequer by not accepting the Independent MLAs’ resignations timely. He said, “This additional burden could have been avoided if the resignations had been accepted earlier and the three by-polls had been held on June 1 along with the bypolls in six Assembly seats.”