BJP focuses on voters as Sudhir Sharma, Rajinder Rana target govt

Lalit Mohan

Dharamsala, April 11

The campaign for the six Assembly byelections and four Lok Sabha seats in the state is emerging as a fight between the Congress rebels and the state government. The Congress rebels, namely Sudhir Sharma, BJP candidate from the Dharamsala seat, and Rajinder Rana, BJP candidate from the Sujanpur seat, are at the forefront in targeting the Congress government.

Questions raised over stone crusher

• Sudhir Sharma has filed a criminal complaint seeking the registration of a case against the Chief Minister for levelling allegations in a political rally at Kutlehar in Una
• Sudhir Sharma has raised questions over the functioning of a stone crusher in Hamirpur district
• Sudhir Sharma and Rajinder Rana have questioned the government’s decision to return Rs 100 crore to the Centre granted for the medical devices park project

While the BJP is concentrating on seeking votes and ensuring the third term for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Congress rebels are taking on the 14-month-old Congress government over the issues of “misgovernance and corruption”.

Sharma has launched a frontal attack on Chief Minister Sukhvinder Sukhu. He recently sent a defamation notice and then filed a criminal complaint in court seeking the registration of case against the Chief Minister for levelling allegations at a political rally in the Kutlehar area of Una district that the six rebel MLAs had taken Rs 15 crore each for crossing over to the BJP.

Sharma has also levelled allegations of corruption against the government. He has raised questions over a stone crusher in Hamirpur district and threatened to expose the misdeeds in its operations as the election campaign picks up. He has also raised a question mark on a meeting of the Tourism Department that was scheduled in a hotel in Chandigarh on April 9 alleging that it was being organised illegally. After that the government cancelled the meeting and Sharma claimed credit for it.

Sharma and Rana have also raised questions over the government’s decision to return Rs 100 crore to the Union Government granted for a medical devices park in the Nalagarh area of Solan district. They alleged that the area where the medical devices park was to come up was being used for illegal mining.

Interesting, no Congress leader from Kangra district is coming forward to defend the government over the issues Sharma and Rana are raising. The Chief Minister has adopted an aggressive posture against the rebels and reiterated during his recent visit to Kangra his allegation against them that they have accepted money to switch sides.

The aggressive stance being adopted by the Congress rebels against the state government has helped them galvanise support from the BJP cadres in their constituencies. In the BJP, barring Kishan Kapoor, most of the party leaders have come in the support of Sharma. Many of them have said that they have now got an aggressive leadership against the Congress government.

Sources said that as the election campaign picks up pace in the state, the BJP leadership may use the Congress rebels aggressively to take on the state government over the issues of corruption and misgovernance in the past 14 months.