‘To weed out inactive cadre’, Congress dissolves its Himachal Pradesh unit
The All-India Congress Committee (AICC) has dissolved the entire Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC). “The Congress president has approved the proposal to dissolve the entire state unit of the PCC, district presidents and block Congress committees of Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee with immediate effect,” said AICC general secretary KC Venugopal in a press release.
Incidentally, HPCC chief Pratibha Singh had sent the proposal to dissolve the entire state unit to the AICC a while back. Over the past year, she has said — on several occasions — that the HPCC needs to be reconstituted and strengthened by replacing inactive members with the more enthusiastic and committed individuals.
She had expressed her displeasure publically on several occasions with the office-bearers who were not giving adequate time to the party. Even ahead of the Lok Sabha election earlier this year, she had asked state in-charge Rajeev Shukla to remove the inactive members from their posts.
According to sources, the recommendation for dissolving the entire Pradesh Congress Committee had gone from both the state party president and Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu. “Both the state party president and the Chief Minister felt that the HPCC needed to be reconstituted to prepare it to handle the challenges of the future,” sources said.
“Many individuals were not giving enough time to party affairs. Some had become MLAs and a few others were occupied elsewhere. So, there was an urgent need to reconstitute the HPCC,” the sources said.
A few months back, the AICC had sent a two-member fact-finding committee to the state to look into the reasons for the party’s defeat in the Lok Sabha elections. Sources say that the committee, after talking to several HPCC office-bearers and other leaders, also recommended the dissolution of the HPCC.
Pratibha likely to stay state chief
- HP Congress chief Pratibha Singh is likely to continue as the state president in the new unit as well, central party sources said
- A top source said the state unit’s dissolution was warranted after several office-bearers were absorbed in the government and a rebalance was important
