Ex-minister Markandey makes going tough for BJP in Lahaul-Spiti bypoll, meets office-bearers even before ticket allotment
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TNR Desk
Even as the BJP is yet to announce its candidates for the June 1 Assembly bypoll to six seats from Himachal Pradesh, former minister Ramlal Markandey has thrown his hat in the ring from Lahaul-Spiti and started preparations by organising a meeting of the party’s office-bearers of the district.
Markandey had a detailed discussion on various issues concerning the Assembly bypoll as well as the Lok Sabha election through video-conference. This even as disqualified Congress MLA Ravi Thakur, who had defeated Markandey in the 2022 Assembly election by 1,616 votes, and five other rebels have put the condition of announcement of tickets to them from their respective constituencies at the time of their joining the BJP in New Delhi.
There were reports on Wednesday (March 20) as well that the six disqualified Congress MLAs — Sudhir Sharma (Dharamshala), Rajinder Rana (Sujanpur), Ravi Thakur (Lahaul-Spiti), Inder Dutt Lakhanpal (Barsar), Chaitanya Sharma (Gagret) and Davinder Bhutto (Kutlehar) — would join the BJP, but that didn’t happen. Sources said the BJP was in a catch-22 situation as far as the ticket allotment to the six Congress rebels is concerned as it could antagonise its own leaders, among them former minister Markandey from Lahaul-Spiti and Virender Kanwar from Kutlehar.
Markandey had reached Shimla on Sunday, the second day after the announcement of byelections. Asked about contesting the byelection, he said, “I am a BJP worker and being a soldier of the party, I will contest the election on the party ticket only.”
Markandey is said to be close to Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu as well as both were students of Himachal Pradesh University in Shimla. If the BJP gives the ticket to Ravi Thakur, Markandey didn’t reveal what his next step would be.
On the other hand, former BJP minister Virendra Kanwar has sounded the poll bugle as part of his public relations campaign to contest the byelection from Kutlehar. The former minister said he would contest the election at any cost.
