Congress Fields Two More Candidates for Himachal Pradesh Bypolls

Congress announced candidates for Himachal Pradesh by-elections: Anuradha Rana for Lahaul and Spiti; Subash Chand for Barsar. Rana and Chand will face former Congress MLAs Ravi Thakur and Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, who joined the BJP. With these candidates, Congress has named nominees for five of the six assembly seats that fell vacant due to disqualification of party rebels in February. The party is yet to announce its candidate for Dharamshala.

The Congress on Sunday night announced the names of candidates for Lahaul and Spiti and Barsar assembly constituencies in Himachal Pradesh where bypolls are scheduled for June 1.

The party has fielded Zila Parishad chairperson Anuradha Rana from Lahaul and Spiti seat and Subash Chand from Barsar constituency.

According to a release issued by the Congress, the candidature of Rana and Chand was approved by party president Mallikarjun Kharge.

Rana and Chand will take on the BJP's Ravi Thakur and Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, respectively, both Congress turncoats.

With Sunday's announcement, the Congress has named candidates on five of the six assembly seats that fell vacant after the disqualification of party rebels from the Himachal Pradesh Assembly in February.

On April 26, the Congress had named Captain Ranjit Singh as its candidate from Sujanpur assembly seat and Rakesh Kalia, who quit the BJP after being denied an election ticket, from Gagret assembly.

The Congress has fielded Vivek Sharma, the son of former Himachal Pradesh Assembly deputy speaker and senior Congress leader Ram Nath Sharma, from Kutlehar.

The party is yet to name its candidate from Dharamshala.

The six rebel Congress MLAs -- Thakur, Lakhanpal, Rajinder Rana (Sujanpur), Sudhir Sharma (Dharamshala), Chetanya Sharma (Gagret) and Devinder Kumar Bhutto (Kutlehar) -- were disqualified for defying a party whip to be present in the Vidhan Sabha and vote in favour of the government during the cut motions and budget.

These MLAs had voted in favour of the BJP candidate in the February 27 Rajya Sabha elections.

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