BJP fields former Congress minister Harsh Mahajan as Rajya Sabha candidate from Himachal
Pratibha Chauhan
Shimla, February 15
The BJP today sprung a surprise by fielding former Congress minister Harsh Mahajan as its candidate for the Rajya Sabha seat.
Despite having a mere 25 legislators in the 68-member House, BJP is keen to make the contest interesting. The Congress has fielded Supreme Court lawyer Manu Abhishek Singhvi as its candidate.
The Congress is confident of victory as it has 40 MLAs but the BJP game plan would be to manage cross-voting to embarrass the government. The three Independent legislators had also attended the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting last night.
With Harsh Mahajan having defected to the BJP just before the 2022 Assembly election, the BJP fielded him in the hope of getting votes of Congress legislators.
The polling will take place on February 27 and the results will be declared on the same day.
Congress candidate Singhvi will also be filing his nomination papers at 1 pm later.
