Himachal Congress chief Pratibha Singh says she will not contest Lok Sabha election

Speaking to The Indian Express over the phone, Pratibha Singh said, “I will not contest the Lok Sabha election. I have conveyed my decision to the high command through party in-charge Rajeev Shukla.”

Asked about the reasons behind her decision, Singh said, “The bypolls to the six Vidhan Sabha seats that have been vacant since the disqualification of six rebel MLAs are crucial. I believe that if I contested the Lok Sabha election, I would not justify my role as the state party president. However, the party will gather feedback from the public to select candidates for the four seats.”

Meanwhile, Singh also recommended Kaul Singh Thakur, an eight-time MLA who lost the 2022 Assembly polls to BJP candidate Puran Chand in Darang, for the Mandi Lok Sabha seat. Thakur is also a member of the Congress’s six-member committee constituted to facilitate communication between the party and the state government.

Earlier in the day, Singh told reporters in Shimla, “Our party workers are feeling very low. They feel cheated. It is my firm belief that we have failed to give them the responsibilities they deserve after the formation of the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh.”

Performance in 2019

Singh defeated the BJP candidate by around 8,500 votes in the 2021 Mandi Lok Sabha bypoll, which was held after the death of BJP MP Swaroop Sharma, who won the seat in 2019.

A sympathy wave after the death of her husband, six-time chief minister Virbhadra Singh, was attributed as one of the reasons behind Singh’s victory by a narrow margin. Her son Vikramaditya Singh made headlines by announcing his resignation as PWD minister a day before the arrival of Congress observers from Delhi to assess the situation after the embarrassing defeat of the party’s Rajya Sabha candidate, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, last month. Six rebel Congress MLAs cross-voted in favour of BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan and he won the Rajya Sabha seat.

In the just 15 months the Congress government has been in power in Himachal, Singh has raised questions about coordination and alleged neglect on the part of Chief Minister Sukhu several times. Complaints have been made to the Congress high command multiple times.

The party observers who visited the state after Singhvi’s defeat—DK Shivakumar and Bhupinder Singh Hooda—found that the political dynamics between Singh and Sukhu were not good.