Himachal CM’s appeal: Vote to defeat turncoats

Pratibha Chauhan

Shimla, May 31

Chief Minister Sukhvinder Sukhu today said that these elections were people’s fight against forces that tried to defeat their mandate with money power. He exuded confidence that the Congress would win all four Lok Sabha seats and six Assembly byelections.

Sukhu sounded optimistic about the Congress’ victory on all four Lok Sabha seats and in the six Assembly bypoll. He said that the people of Himachal would teach the six Congress MLAs, who had defected to the BJP, a lesson for going against the public mandate given to them.

Sukhu, who had aggressively campaigned all across the state, spent the day meeting party leaders and workers at his home in Nadaun. “Yeh election janata ki ladai hai un logon ke khilaf jo paise ke dum par sarkar banana chahte hain. Janata ko is ladai me loktantra ko bachane ke liye jitna hoga,” he said. In fact, he had been saying that these elections were a fight between “janbal” and “dhanbal” and “sach aur jhoot ki rajneeti”.

Sukhu has been highly critical of the BJP’s alleged efforts in trying to destabilise the state government. He said that the people of Himachal would give a befitting reply to the BJP for its role in the Rajya Sabha election and subsequently in keeping six Congress MLAs and three Independent legislators away from the state for a month.

He said the Congress in Himachal would go from strength to strength as more Assembly bypoll would be held after the victory of Vikramaditya Singh and Vinod Sultanpuri in the Lok Sabha elections.

Sukhu said, “The Congress is seeking votes in these elections solely on the 15-month performance of our government, which has fulfilled election promises. Our government has restored the old pension scheme for employees, granted Rs 1,500 per month to women and launched the Rs 680-crore start-up scheme to generate employment.”