TNR Desk
With the Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha budget session set to be organised from February 14 to 29 (2024), the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu-led Congress government seems to be wary of its two own “dissenting” MLAs, Sudhir Sharma from Dharamshala and Rajinder Rana from Sujanpur.
Ignored for ministerial berths twice, both Sudhir and Rana have spoken against their own party’s government on public platforms on several occasions. Chief Minister Sukhu, thus, would be fearing that the two MLAs may adopt a stance in the House that is contrary to the government’s position. Both were conspicuous by their absence at a crucial meeting of the Congress Legislative Party in Dharamshala during the winter session recently.
Sudhir recently took a stand divergent from the Congress on attending the Ram temple consecration ceremony in Ayodhya. While the party’s two top leaders, president Mallikarjun Kharge and former chief Sonia Gandhi, declined the invite to attend the ceremony, Sudhir made it to the venue, so did young Public Works Department Minister from Himachal Vikramaditya Singh.
Having remained a minister in the Virbhadra Singh government from 2012-17, Sudhir has earlier criticised the Sukhu regime on a host of other issues too, including unemployment.
Rana had last month criticised the Sukhu government for allegedly giving cabinet rank to unelected people allegedly at the cost of elected MLAs. He had recently also targeted Chief Minister Sukhu over unfulfilled promises made to the people of his constituency.
Rana had written an open letter to Chief Minister Sukhu, urging him to fulfil the promises the Congress had made to people before the last Assembly elections. The letter went viral on social media. He stated in the letter that even after 14 months of the formation of the Congress government, thousands of candidates, who had appeared in the written exams of the now-dissolved Himachal Pradesh Staff Selection Commission, were waiting for results. He demanded that the selection process that was stopped following the dissolution of the commission be started soon.
Rana said that there was resentment among the youth for not providing jobs on compassionate ground. He mentioned that though the bed capacity of the Civil Hospital at Sujanpur had been increased, doctors had not been appointed.
