Kangra Congress MLAs eye 4 Cabinet berths

Tribune News Service

Lalit Mohan

Dharamsala, December 11

As Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu took oath as Chief Minister today, the race for Cabinet berths has started.

In the race for various reasons

• Chander Kumar likely to be the obvious choice as he is the OBC face of the party
• Sudhir Sharma was a minister in the Virbhadra Singh Cabinet from 2012-2017
• Bhawani Singh Pathania from Fatehpur and Kewal Pathania from Shahpur, both Rajput leaders, who defeated ministers
• RS Bali is the AICC secretary and son of senior Congress leader late GS Bali
• Ashish Butail is a two-time Palampur MLA

Leaders from Kangra district, who lost the race for the CM’s post, are now eyeing plum Cabinet berths as 25 per cent of the elected Congress MLAs (10 out of 40) are from the district.

Since the posts of CM and Deputy CM have gone to leaders from the Hamirpur parliamentary constituency that comprises Una, Hamirpur and Bilaspur districts, MLAs from these constituencies are unlikely to get any berth.

Sources said leaders from Kangra were eyeing at least four berths. The leaders in the race for the Cabinet berths, including former Rajya Sabha member Chander Kumar.

Chander Kumar is likely to be the obvious choice as he is the OBC face of the party. Other leaders are former minister and AICC secretary Sudhir Sharma, AICC secretary Raghubir Singh Bali, Ashish Butail, second-time Congress MLA from Palampur, and Bhawani Singh Pathania, Congress MLA from Fatehpur.

Sudhir Sharma, a former minister, is also in the race. He was a powerful minister in the Congress government from 2012-17 under former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh. He had refused to contest the 2019 Assembly bypoll from Dharamsala, upsetting some senior leaders at the national level.

Raghubir Singh Bali is in contention because of being the son of senior Congress leader and former minister GS Bali. He is also credited with organising the Berozgar Yatra and was among a handful of leaders, who managed to carry out and fund a statewide campaign against the BJP government over unemployment.

Rajput leaders from Kangra are also eyeing the Cabinet berths. It will be difficult for the party to ignore Rajput leaders. Kangra has a significant number of Rajput population. At present, there are two Rajput MLAs, Bhawani Singh Pathania, who represents the Fatehpur constituency, and Kewal Singh Pathania, who represents the Shahpur constituency.

Both leaders defeated two sitting ministers, Rakesh Pathania, Minister of Forests, and Sarveen Chaudhary, Minister for Social Justice.

Two Congress MLAs from Chamba district, Kuldeep Singh Pathania from Bhattiyat and Neeraj Nayar from Chamba, are also eyeing the Cabinet berths. The claims of both MLAs have been strengthened after the defeat of senior Congress leader Asha Kumari, who represented Dalhousie.

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