Gandhis Present, Sukhvinder Sukhu Becomes Himachal Chief Minister

1. In a huge symbolic gesture on stage shortly after the newly elected leaders were sworn in, a wreath photo of the late Virbhadra Singh, former royal and six-time Premier of the state mountains, was hung up and all the leaders joined their hands to pay their respects. Party chairman Mallikarjun Kharge also accompanied the Gandhis at the grand event, held at Ridge Maidan in Shimla on Sunday.

2. Congressman Rahul Gandhi was also seen hugging Pratibha Singh, wife of the late Virbhadra Singh, on stage. Ms. Singh is another candidate for the top post, and even made the claim with a subtle but stark reminder to the party’s senior commander.

3. She said elections had been taken and won in the name of her husband Virbhadra Singh, who died last year, and it would be “a disaster” to leave out his family. However, she did not receive popular support among the old party’s 40 newly elected MLAs, which is why she was disqualified from the contest, sources said.

4. The Gandhis gesture was an olive branch to disgruntled supporters of Pratibha Singh, who stormed the hotel where the party’s central observers were staying, and raised slogans in support of her. They even stopped the car of Minister Chhattisgarh Bhupesh Baghel, one of the central observers, before the key party meeting, to send a direct message to the leadership.

5. The decision to appoint Mukesh Agnihotri, the opposition leader in the outgoing Himachal Pradesh assembly, as the state’s first deputy minister was also seen by the National Assembly as a balancing act aimed at appeasing ego. Mr Agnihotri is Virbhadra Singh’s protégé, and Pratibha Singh is said to have even fought for his appointment as Chief Minister after her own disqualification.

6. This is the first election success of All India Congress Committee (AICC) Secretary General Priyanka Gandhi while in charge of the campaign. The party lost in parliamentary polls in Uttar Pradesh while she led the campaign there earlier this year.

7. Mr. Sukhu, MLA from Nadaun in the hill state’s Hamirpur district, heads the Parliament’s campaign committee for the recently held state elections.

8. Sukhvinder Sukhu, 58, has been selected for the top post by the high command of the National Assembly amid intense lobbying by Pratibha Singh, Member of Parliament and wife of a former Minister and National War veteran. association, the late Virbhadra Singh.

9. A four-time MLA, Mr. Sukhu is the son of a bus driver and started his political career from the campus of Himachal Pradesh University in Shimla.

10. Although the National Assembly has wrested power from the BJP in Himachal Pradesh by winning 40 out of 68 council seats, the party’s candidates have a slim margin of victory of less than 2,000 out of 15 seats. The National Assembly and the BJP have 40 and 25 seats, respectively, but the difference in the percentage of votes is only 0.90%.

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