Congress should go for young face from Mandi if Pratibha Singh opts out: Kaul Singh

Dipender Manta

Mandi, March 29

Senior Congress leader and former minister Kaul Singh Thakur has advocated giving a chance to a young candidate to contest the Lok Sabha election from the Mandi seat if Congress president Pratibha Singh is not interested.

Kaul Singh told , “I do not know why Pratibha Singh declined to contest the election. She is a strong candidate who had considerably dented BJP’s lead and registered victory in the 2021 by-election. In the Lok Sabha election in 2019, the then BJP candidate Ram Swaroop had won the election by a margin of 4.5 lakh votes.”

In reply to a query, Kaul Singh said, “I am a staunch soldier of the party and I have always obeyed the order of party leadership. In this matter I have already conveyed my message to the party high command.”

“In my view, the party should give a chance to a youth to contest the Lok Sabha election from Mandi seat,” Kaul Singh said.

“In Himachal there is Congress government and I believe this will be an advantage for the party in the Lok Sabha election. The Congress has yet not decided any candidate on Lok Sabha seats in the state. It is expected that the party high command will declare the name of candidates soon. The Mandi Lok Sabha seat is a big parliamentary constituency, where the candidate needs adequate time to lead the election campaign effectively at the ground level. In view of it, the party high command should decide a candidate for the Lok Sabha seat well in time,” he said.

Kaul Singh said, “When I asked the Congress rebel MLAs, who voted against party candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi in the recent Rajya Sabha election, they said that they were annoyed with the party high command for fielding a candidate from outside the state. They said that they were in favour of fielding a party candidate from Himachal. However, their decision to support the BJP candidate for which they had been disqualified from the Vidhan Sabha was wrong.”