With the Himachal Pradesh Congress unit awaiting to be revamped, Congress Rajya Sabha MP Rajni Patil, the new in-charge for party affairs in the State has asserted that setting up the new State body was her foremost priority, even as she dismissed the notion that the State unit was ‘paralysed’.
“After assuming the charge, I have met Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and also met Public Works Department (PWD) Minister Vikramaditya Singh recently. Reconstituting the State unit is the priority. I shall be visiting Himachal in the first week of March to meet senior leaders and workers, and I am hopeful the Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee will be reconstituted soon,” Ms. Patil told The Hindu.
Recently, senior Congress leaders including State Agriculture Minister Chander Kumar and Health Minister Dhaniram Shandil had expressed concerns surrounding the delay in reconstituting of the State unit. Mr. Kumar had stated that the delay in revamping the State unit has left it “paralysed”.
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Dismissing that the party’s unit was ‘paralysed’, Ms. Patil said “I don’t think it is paralysed. Since the body was last set up, additions have been going on, and hundreds of office bearers are too much a size for a small State such as Himachal. Hence the exercise of revamping was started. The coordinators have submitted their reports. We will soon take a call,” she said.
Meanwhile, in Shimla, HPCC president Pratibha Singh on Thursday (February 20, 2025) said she will soon meet head to Delhi and urge Ms. Patil to constitute the State unit of the party. “Elections for Panchayati Raj Institutions are due by the end of this year, in which the role of party’s organistaion would be critical,” she said.
In November last year, All India Congress Committee (AICC) president Mallikarjun Kharge dissolved the entire State unit of the Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee. The move came months after Congress, the ruling party in the State failed to win even a single seat of the four Parliamentary seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
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In July 2024, the AICC had set up a two-member panel to look into the factors that resulted in the party’s debacle in the Lok Sabha elections in Himachal Pradesh. The panel had submitted a report to the Central leadership after seeking feedback from party leaders and workers.
The electoral loss was seen as a setback to the Congress, which has been in power in Himachal since 2022, with the party losing all four Lok Sabha seats to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). However, the party’s successes in Assembly by-polls, bolstered the party and provided it the much-needed stability to the State government, which had seen political turmoil, following defection.
