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Journalism of Courage
Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jairam Thakur will file his nomination papers from the Seraj Assembly constituency in Mandi district on Wednesday for the November 12 Assembly elections, the BJP has said.
A five-time MLA, Thakur (57) will submit the papers to the Thunag sub-divisional magistrate (SDM), the returning officer (RO) for Seraj, after taking blessings from his mother and deities “Kuldevta” and “Kuldevi”, the BJP said in a statement on Tuesday. He will be accompanied by his wife Sadhna Thakur and daughters Chandrika and Priyanka, it added.
Thakur was scheduled to reach Renglu on Wednesday morning in a helicopter from Delhi, where he attended the first meeting of the party’s newly reconstituted Central Election Committee to finalise candidates for the state polls. The BJP declared its first list of 62 candidates on Wednesday morning. The state Assembly has 68 seats.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Amit Shah and BJP president J P Nadda attended the meeting of the CEC in which the party recently brought in several new faces. The 15-member CEC has new entrants such as BS Yediyurappa, Union ministers Bhupender Yadav and Sarbananda Sonowal, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Om Mathur, party’s Other Backward Classes (OBC) Morcha president K Laxman, Iqbal Singh Lalpura, Satyanarayan Jatiya and Sudha Yadav.
The BJP core group from the hill state on Monday held extensive deliberations to narrow down the list of probable candidates, with Shah and Nadda also holding discussions on the matter.
Meanwhile, two candidates filed their papers in Kangra district on the second day of filing nominations, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Maneesh Garg said. Ashok Kumar Somal (64) filed his nomination as an Independent candidate from Fatehpur constituency, while Arun Kumar (42) filed his papers from Jawali as a Himachal Jan Kranti Party candidate, he added.
No candidate filed the nomination on Monday, the first day of filing papers. The notification for the state elections was issued on October 17 and the last date for the filing of nominations is October 25. Scrutiny of papers will be held on October 27 and the last date for the withdrawal of papers is October 29.
The Congress, meanwhile, wrote to the Election Commission, requesting that candidates be allowed to file their nominations during the Diwali holidays between October 23-25. In a letter to the poll panel, the Opposition party said that a similar reprieve was given during the Punjab elections and that the EC should take into consideration the complexities of the hill state.
The Congress declared its first list of 46 candidates on Tuesday night. Party leader and former HPCC chief Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has said that he will file his nomination on October 21.
Trying its luck for the first time, the Aam Aadmi Party has declared its candidates for four seats. It is likely to name the remaining candidates by Wednesday evening, the party’s state in-charge and Punjab minister Harjot Bains said on Tuesday.
In the outgoing Assembly, the BJP has 43 members, followed by 22 of the Congress. There are two Independents and one CPM MLA in the Assembly. As of now, 55,74,793 people are eligible to vote in the polls.
