Shimla, June 2: Himachal Congress today chose to play safe and decided not to declare any official candidate for Shimla Municipal Corporation. The decision to allow the party worker to contest the elections on their own without any official backing of the party was taken at a meeting held here today under the chairmanship of Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC) chief Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu, which held detailed deliberations regarding strategy for the SMC polls.
“Since the SMC elections are not being held on party symbols, any former councillor or other worker, who is capable of winning the election on his own, will contest but there will be no official candidates”, HPCC president said.
Congress MLA from Kusumpti, Anirudh Singh, former MLAs Harbhajan Singh Bhajji and Adarsh Sood, vice chairman of HP Tourism Development Corporation (HPTDC), who had lost assembly poll from Shimla in 2012, Harish Janartha, presidents of Shimla (Urban) and Shimla (Rural) Congress committees, Pradeep Bhuja and Ritesh Kapret and former Mayors of the SMC were present at the meeting which also decided that any ward or the district Congress committee would not recommend the name of any candidate.
There are a large number of aspirants for 34 wards of the SMC and the Congress party is aware that it will be difficult to quell the rebellion in case in case workers entered the fray against the official candidates.State BJP vice president Ganesh Dutt said that the Congress was apprehensive of the defeat from the very beginning.
Firstly, it decided not to hold the SMC polls on party symbols and then deferred the polls on the pretext of revision of electoral rolls. Now it has decided not to announce official candidates to escape the responsibility of defeat.
He said the BJP would declare its candidates within two days and was confident of sweeping the polls. The filing of nomination would start tomorrow and close on June 5 and as such only four days are left for political parties to decide their candidates.
Source Tribune India
