Former Himachal Pradesh BJP president Khimi Ram defected from the celebration unit to affix Congress earlier this 12 months and now the Opposition celebration, which is trying to return to energy, has fielded him from his house turf Banjar in Kullu district. Additional dealing a blow to the ruling celebration’s probabilities is an inner insurrection within the constituency.
The 73-year-old entered politics within the Nineties and held a put up within the district council. He went on to contest elections from Banjar in 2003 on a BJP ticket and received. He retained the seat within the Meeting polls 4 years later. The identical 12 months, Khimi was additionally elected Deputy Speaker of the state Meeting.
With Dhumal’s backing he grew to become the state BJP president in 2009 after Jai Ram Thakur, the present chief minister, was inducted into the Cupboard. The next 12 months, Ram was unanimously re-elected to the put up. However his tenure was marked by infighting within the state unit and noticed the exit of former state celebration president and former MP Maheshwar Singh in December 2011 over his resolution to drop Naveen Dhiman and Tikku Thakur from the BJP’s state physique and district unit.
Thakur was later eliminated because the president and moved to cupboard within the Dhumal authorities. He was denied an election ticket in 2017 regardless of expressing his want to contest the Meeting elections once more from Banjar.
The Banjar seat will likely be a three-way contest between Ram, incumbent MLA Surender Shourie of the BJP and Maheshwar Singh’s son Hiteshwar Singh, who’s contesting as an Impartial. Maheshwar’s Singh ticket was cancelled after he didn’t persuade Hiteshwar to withdraw his candidature.