Congress chief Kharge forms panel to restore order to its house in Himachal

In a bid to ensure better coordination between the Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu-led state government and the party in Himachal Pradesh, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has constituted a six-member committee.

Besides Chief Minister Sukhu, his deputy Mukesh Agnihotri, and PCC chief Pratibha Singh, the panel will have senior party leaders Kaul Singh Thakur, Dhaniram Shandil and Ram Lal Thakur.

The central observers Kharge had dispatched to Shimla in the wake of the party candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi's shocking defeat in the February 27 Rajya Sabha polls and rebellion by six party MLAs had assured Sukhu rival Pratibha Singh that the party will form a coordination panel. The six MLAs had cross-voted in favour of the BJP candidate.

After Singhvi's drubbing, Pratibha and her minister son Vikramaditya Singh had claimed that the rebellion within the party was due to growing disaffection against Sukhu.

Meanwhile, the six rebels who were disqualified as MLAs – Sudhir Sharma, Rajinder Rana, Chaitanya Sharma, Devinder Bhutto, ID Lakhanpal and Ravi Thakur – are yet to return to Himachal.

The rebel MLAs, who had plunged the Congress-led government into an existential crisis, have been staying at a five star hotel in Panchkula since the cross-voting episode, with the BJP playing their host, according to Sukhu. They have now checked into a hotel in the BJP-ruled Uttarakhand.

Meanwhile, they have challenged their disqualification from the Himachal Pradesh Assembly for violating provisions of the 10th Schedule (anti-defection law) in the Supreme Court. However, their petition is yet to be listed for hearing by the top court.