Congress dissolves Himachal unit, Pratibha Singh says told to continue as state chief

The move comes almost five months after the party failed to wrest any of the four Lok Sabha seats in the general elections held earlier this year. The party, however, had managed to win six of the nine Assembly seats where byelections were held. There has been no change in the PCC ever since party stormed to power winning 40 of the 68 seats in the 2022 Assembly elections.

Pratibha Singh, the party’s state unit chief, meanwhile, said that she has been asked to continue on the post. “I have been told to continue as the president of Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee. I have been stressing for a long time to dissolve the PCC as well as the district and block levels units as too many people had been adjusted in the committees especially in view of the elections in the state. Change is always good,” she told the Indian Express.

The move to retain Pratibha as state unit chief is akin to one adopted by the party in 2019 when it had dissolved the Himachal state unit, but continued with the president, Kuldeep Singh Rathore, who had been appointed earlier that year.

Pratibha, who is wife of former six-time chief minister Virbhadra Singh and was appointed as state Congress chief in April 2022, has already been made a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the highest decision-making body of the party. Her son Vikramaditya Singh is the PWD and Urban Development minister in Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu led Cabinet.

The Congress’ Himachal unit has been plagued by factionalism, something that came to fore during the election to the lone Rajya Sabha seat from the state when the ruling party’s nominee Abhishek Singhvi lost the election to BJP’s Harsh Mahajan after six Congress MLAs cross-voted in latter’s favour. The six MLAs were later disqualified for defying party whip to vote in favour of finance bill in the House. The political crisis had brought down the strength of the Congress in the 68-member House from 40 to 34, one short of the majority mark.

Later, Pratibha, without taking any names, had said that “when it has been more than a year and you take no cognizance or listen to the MLAs, it is natural for them to be upset. Had you sat down with, talked to them and found out a solution, this situation would not have occurred”. She had also said the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) work across constituencies has been better than that of the grand old party.

Amid the political crisis, Vikramaditya had announced his resignation from Sukhu’s Cabinet while alleging attempts by some quarters to “humiliate” and “undermine” him. He had also claimed the Congress fought the 2022 Assembly elections in the name of his father, but the party’s government failed to find even a small plot of land on Shimla’s Mall Road to install a statue of the six-time former CM. Later, he was pacified by the party’s central leaders and withdrew his resignation “in the larger interest and unity of the party”.

Meanwhile, several names are doing the rounds for the new party chief in the state with sources saying that at least two ministers, including Harshvardhan Chauhan, are the front runners. Sources said that the name of an MLA, who is also a Chief Parliamentary Secretary (CPS) and close to Sukhu, is also being pushed for the post by a section of party leaders.

“I believe now preference will be given to those who are young and committed Congress workers. The office bearers in the PCC are also holding certain posts in the government,” Pratibha told the Indian Express.

On July 29, Pratibha had met Kharge in Delhi stressing on the need to make changes in organizational structure in the state. She had also met AICC in-charge Rajeev Shukla.