Congress high command has approved the name of Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu for the post of the Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister, official sources have said. The official announcement of Sukhu’s pick will be made shortly.
Sukhu had earlier said that Himachal CM will be whoever the high command wants. "Whoever high command wants will be the CM, whoever has their blessings besides the discussions and suggestions of the MLAs," Sukhu had said while on the way to Shimla to attend legislative party meeting at Congress state headquarters.
"Every journalist has asked me earlier about the person under whose leadership we (Congress) would contest elections. I have said that it will be done under the collective leadership, the ideology is supreme and the post comes later. We will have a Chief Minister and the High command will make the one from those who had contested the Himachal Pradesh assembly elections," Sukhu had further added.
Sukhu retained his Nadaun seat as the Congress dethrone the BJP winning 40 out of the 68 Assembly seats in the recently concluded Himachal Pradesh elections. However, the Congress only marginally beat the BJP in terms of voteshare, garnering 43.88 percent of votes compared to 42.99 percent. BJP won 25 states in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly Elections 2022.
Sukhu was the president of the Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee from 2013 to 2019. He had been unofficially heading the HPCC ahead of the elections and was made the President again back in November 2022.
On the other hand, Himachal Pradesh State Congress President Pratibha Singh also expressed a desire to be named CM. “They can’t neglect his (Virbhadra Singh) family. We won on his name, face and work. It can’t be the case that you use his name, face and family and then give all the credit to someone else. Even High Command won’t do this,” she was quoted to have said.
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(With inputs from ANI)
