Left Parties to field its candidates on 34 out of 68 seats in Himachal assembly elections

Dharamshala, October 13, 2017: Communist, who have full hold in the HPU campus and in Shimla the Capital city of Himachal, has very little presence in the Himachal legislative assembly since the birth of present Himachal after inclusion of hilly areas of Punjab in it in 1966. Two CPI MLAs Paras Ram from Jaswan (Kangra) and Bansi Ram from Baijnath (Kangra) were chosen in 1967 was the highest presence of left in the state assembly. Later, KK Koushal from Kotkehloor elected in 1990 and CPM leader Rakesh Singha got entry to assembly from Shimla in 1993. Since then no communist leader got through to HP Assembly from anywhere, whereas in last Shimla municipal corporation elections Communists got Mayor seat in the name of Sanjay Chouhan and Deputy Mayor Tikender Kanwar but the experiment vanished in the latest elections. First-time councillor Kusum Sadret, backed by the BJP, was elected as the new Mayor of Shimla in Himachal Pradesh and Rakesh Kumar, who won as an Independent candidate later joined BJP, was elected the deputy mayor in June this year.
Still, Left parties (CPI and CPM) have declared that they would field their candidates in 34 out of 68 assembly constituencies of Himachal in the coming elections for which poling is due on 9th November.
After taking a lead in declaring its candidates for 13 constituencies that the party is fighting on this time, the CPM is tying up with different organisations to form an “anti-BJP” and “anti-Congress” joint front.
Senior CPM leader Rakesh Singha launched his campaign from Theog in Shimla. He is likely to contest against Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh if the IPH Minister Vidya Stokes (89), hangs her boots as per reports in the media. The CM Virbhadra is leaving his Shimla rural seat for his son Youth Congress state chief Vikramaditya Singh. The BJP is yet to declare its candidate from Theog.
Rakesh Singha announced other candidates of his party as IFS retired Dr Kuldip Tanwar from Kusumpati and former Shimla Mayor Sanjay Chauhan from the Shimla urban. “The others in the fray are Kushal Bhardwaj from Jogindernagar, Bhupinder Singh from Dharampur, Anil Mankotia from Hamirpur, Joginder Kumar from Sujanpur, Lokinder from Anni (Kullu), Manish from Sarkaghat, Vishwanath from Nahan, Vivek Kashayap from Rampur and Bittu Thakur from Palampur,” said Singha to this correspondent on phone.