Jai Ram Thakur bats for Satpal Singh Satti as Himachal's LoP

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, December 14

Amid hectic consultations to appoint the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly, former Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur is learnt to have put his weight behind former state BJP president Satpal Singh Satti.

Satti, a third-term MLA from Una, defeated Congress sitting lawmaker Satpal Raizada by a margin of 1,736 votes this time. For Satti it was a sweet revenge, as the Congress had won the Una seat in 2017 after 15 years. He had lost the Una seat in 2017 by a margin of over 3,000 votes.

Behind Thakur’s backing for Satti is the fact that the latter hails from the Una Assembly constituency, which falls in the Hamirpur Lok Sabha segment, an area where the BJP was otherwise wiped out this election.

Satti’s victory was the only bright spot for the BJP in Una district where the Congress bagged four out of five seats. Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur is the sitting Lok Sabha MP from Hamirpur. In the recent Assembly elections, no BJP candidate could win from the parliamentary segment.

Himachal BJP sources said that appointing Satti as the Leader of Opposition in the state could also prove a counter to the Congress strategy of elevating Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu as Chief Minister, who, like Satti, is from the Hamirpur constituency and belongs to the dominant Rajput community. However, the BJP central leadership would take the final call, sources said.

Counter to Cong strategy

• Satti, a third-term MLA from Una, defeated Congress candidate Satpal Raizada by a margin of 1,736 votes in the Assembly elections
• Appointing Satti as the Leader of Opposition in the state could prove to be a counter to the Congress strategy of elevating Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu as Chief Minister
• Satti is also from the Hamirpur segment and belongs to dominant Rajput community