Congress wary of backstabbing by party men in Mandi

Dipender Manta

Mandi, April 6

The Congress is apprehensive that backstabbing by own party men may mar the party”s prospects of winning the Lok Sabha election from the Mandi seat. The Congress is deliberating on the name of the candidate for the Mandi seat while the BJP has already fielded Kangana Ranaut from the constituency.

Congress leaders, who had lost the last Assembly elections by a small margin of votes in Mandi district, are quite sure that their own party men worked against them. In Mandi district, the BJP had won nine of the 10 Assembly seats in the last elections. Now, these leaders are apprehensive that the Congress candidates may again face political sabotage in the Mandi Lok Sabha election.

Fear of political sabotage

• Congress leaders, who had lost the last Assembly elections by a small margin of votes in Mandi district, are quite sure that their own party men worked against them
• In Mandi district, the BJP had won nine of the 10 Assembly seats in the last elections in 2019
• These Congress leaders are apprehensive that the party candidates may again face political sabotage in the Mandi Lok Sabha election

District Congress Committee president Prakash Chaudhary also spoke on the issue at a party meeting held in Mandi recently. He said, “Some backstabbers harm the party candidate’s prospects by saying that the management of the opposition party is good or the candidate of the opposition party is stronger than that of the Congress, as happened in the last Assembly elections. As a result, senior Congress leaders like Kaul Singh Thakur lost the election by a small margin of votes. I had faced a similar situation.”

Kaul Singh Thakur also endorsed Chaudhary’s observation. He says that without unity, it may not be possible for the party to win the Mandi Lok Sabha election.

The Congress is beset with infighting in the Mandi parliamentary constituency where some party leaders are staunch loyalists of state Congress president Pratibha Singh, while others owe allegiance to Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu. On many occasions, they tried to dominate each other. A few months ago, Prakash Chaudhary had announced that he would leave the Congress, as he was upset at alleged interference by APMC chairman Sanjeev Guleria in his Assembly constituency.