Himachal Confidential

Awards are deceptive?
Congress Legislative Party leader Vidya Stokes recently said in the Assembly that awards received by a state government were not always the proof of happiness of the people of the state. In 2007,she said,the then Virbhadra Singh government had got several awards,but it lost the Assembly elections the same year. On this,Congress MLA Sujan Singh Pathania commented in a lighter vein that he had also got a “best politician” award,yet he lost the previous election by 5,100 votes and needed a byelection to come back to the Assembly.

Emotional atyachar
The BJP’s state-level rally in Shimla on Saturday was organised as its first major public show after the re-election of party president Khimi Ram. However,it seems his efforts to rope in national vice-president and Rajya Sabha member Shanta Kumar as the main speaker,to show him respect,ended in a major catastrophe for Khimi Ram,as well as the party. Khimi Ram was deeply shocked by Shanta’s candid and emotional speech,wherein he minced no words to highlight the ‘newfound vices’ in the state’s party unit. He is understood to have grumbled about it among the party leaders,who have now started to take a dig at Khimi by calling the entire episode ‘emotional atyachar by Shanta Kumar’.

Leading from the front
When state Congress chief Kaul Singh Thakur was speaking during the debate on Governor’s address in the Assembly,the speaker interrupted him several times,hinting that his time was over. Kaul Singh,however,continued his speech. When he was interrupted again,another Congress MLA Mukesh Agnihotri stood up and said the time allotted to him could be given to Kaul Singh. To this,a Congress MLA commented later that there seemed some special interest in keeping Kaul Singh in the frontline,knowing that in recent times he had already been under fire from former CM and Union Minister for Steel Virbhadra Singh. The senior leader has been keeping records of each and every political uttering in the state,and whenever he comes here,he takes to task not only the opponent BJP but also his own party men — for trying to harm him,even if indirectly.