Sloganeering mars Congress workers’ meeting in Una

Our Correspondent

UNA, November 20

Sloganeering by supporters of former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and HPCC president Sukhwinder Sukhu was witnessed at a one-day workshop held here on Tuesday to motivate party workers from the Hamirpur parliamentary segment for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. It was organised by the state Congress organisation.

Some supporters raised pitch in favour of CLP leader Mukesh Agnihotri, former Bilaspur MLA Bumber Thaku and Una MLA Satpal Raizada. In the din, Sukhu rose and appealed to the party workers to stop the slogans so that the meeting could go ahead and its purpose addressed.

Speaking on the occasion, state Congress in charge Rajni Patil claimed that propagating the Congress ideology among the people itself was enough to ensure BJP MP Anurag Thakur’s defeat from the Hamirpur seat. Appealing to the party workers to work unitedly for the party candidate and ensure win on all four seats in the state, she said suitable candidates, who were currently not in the party fold, could also be fielded to ensure victory.

In his address, the HPCC president directed the respective block party organisations to ensure that booth-level committees were constituted by December 10. He called upon the workers to take issues such as demonetisation, the Rafale deal etc, to “unmask the face of BJP leaders”.

Sukhu said BJP MPs had been representing the Hamirpur Parliamentary segment for the last 25 years. However, the segment had been ignored in all sectors. He said funds had been discontinued for the Swan river flood management project, Indian Institute of Information Technology, national highways and many such major works in Una district.

Leader of the Opposition Mukesh Agnihotri alleged that the Thakur-led government was treating opposition MLAs as its enemies and had stopped funding virtually for all works in their segments. He said it was the duty of the Opposition to raise public issues and the party in power should not get provoked and perturbed by this.

Agnihotri termed former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh as a statesmen and a party stalwart, who had served the people of the state for more than five decades, making deep inroads into the hearts and minds of the populace. He said the party would unitedly contest and win all four Lok Sabha seats in the state under the leadership of Virbhadra Singh and strengthen the hands of party president Rahul Gandhi in Parliament.

Supporters of former Bilaspur MLA Bumber Thakur began raising slogans in his favour and demanded that he be fielded from the Hamirpur segment as the party candidate. When the slogans continued for some time, Sukhu had to intervene to remind the workers that ticket was not allocated on the basis of slogans and protests by workers.

MLAs Ram Lal Thakur, Rajiner Rana, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, former MLAs Kuldip Kumar, Rajesh Dharmani, Bumber Thakur, Rakesh Kalia, Dr Beeru Ram Kishore, Ajay Mahajan and leaders of block and district level cells of the Congress organisation were present.