Will present works done in past 15 months in court of public, says Himachal CM Sukhu on LS polls

Shimla: The Congress government in Himachal Pradesh has resolved pending problems, faced challenges of economic crises, monsoon disaster and political turmoil and will take the works done in the past 15 months in the court of the public, said Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.

Talking to media persons here, a day after BJP named sitting MPs from Hamirpur and Shimla -- Anurag Thakur and Suresh Kashyap -- in its second list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, Sukhu said notification of the polls is yet to be issued and the names of the Congress candidates for the parliamentary polls will also be announced.

"We have only faced challenges in the past 15 months on economic, disaster and political fronts and resolved pending issues. The BJP government never sought solutions to the issues and just lingered on the matters," he said.

The chief minister has been touring the state and making announcements in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections. Recently he had announced to give Rs 1500 per month to women in the age bracket 18 to 59 and a notification in this regard was issued on Thursday.

A sum of Rs 800 crore would be spent on the initiative -- Indira Gandhi Pyari Behna Sukh Samman Nidhi Yojna -- benefitting over five lakh women annually, Sukhu had said.

The state cabinet had on Wednesday also given a green signal to Himachal Pradesh Rajya Chayan Aayog to go ahead with the process of declaration of results of Junior Officer Assistant (Information Technology). The JOA (IT) candidates who had appeared for the examination were protesting for the declaration of results for quite some time.

Two of the six rebel Congress MLAs - Rajinder Rana and Sudhir Sharma -- who had voted in favour of BJP nominee Harsh Mahajan in the recently-concluded Rajya Sabha polls, had been raising the issue of these JOA (IT) candidates and youth seeking employment in general.

There are four Lok Sabha seats in Himachal Pradesh, namely Shimla, Mandi, Hamirpur and Kangra. The BJP announced its candidates from Hamirpur and Shimla (Schedule Caste) on Wednesday and is yet to declare the candidates for Mandi and Kangra seats.

The Congress has not announced any candidate so far.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Thakur, the son of former chief minister and BJP leader P K Dhumal, is a four-time MP from Hamirpur while former BJP state president Kashyap would contest the Lok Sabha polls for the second time from the Shimla seat.

The BJP had won all the four Lok Sabha seats in 2019 with a thumping majority. BJP leader Krishan Kapoor won by a margin of 4,77,623 in Kangra, Ram Swaroop Sharma by 4,05,459 votes in Mandi, Thakur 3,99,572 in Hamirpur and Kashyap by a margin of 3,27,515 votes in Shimla.

However, the death of Sharma led to bye-elections in the Mandi seat in 2021 and wife of former chief minister Virbhadra Singh and current Congress state chief Pratibha Singh won the seat by a margin of 8,766 votes in the sympathy wave after the death of her husband.