Himachal Pradesh: Former CM Jai Ram Thakur elected as leader of BJP legislature party

SHIMLA: Former chief minister Jai Ram Thakur was elected as the leader of BJP legislature party on Sunday.

He will be in the role of Leader of the Opposition in the new assembly. For this post, the BJP had to select among 3 people, in which apart from Jai Ram Thakur, the names of Satpal Singh Satti and Vipin Singh Parmar were also there. Party decided in favour of Jai Ram Thakur as besides being the former chief minister, he is also the senior most legislature having been elected for the sixth term this time.

He has not only remained chief minister of state from 2017 to December 8, 2022 but has also remained Cabinet minister in the previous BJP regime from 2009 to 2012. Under his leadership, BJP had managed to win 9 seats out of total 10 in Mandi district.

The BJP Legislature Party meeting was held at Wiley Park, Shimla, in which BJP national secretary Vinod Tawde was present as an observer. BJP state president Suresh Kashyap, BJP in-charge Avinash Rai Khanna, co-in-charge Sanjay Tandon and former state incharge Mangal Pandey were also present in the meeting.

Jai Ram Thakur's name was proposed by Satpal Satti, Vipin Parmar, Janak Raj, Anil Sharma and Sukh Ram Choudhary and seconded by Reena Kashyap, Hans Raj and Balbir Verma.

Mangal Pandey while interacting with media said that Jai Ram Thakur has been elected as the leader of the BJP Legislature Party in the Legislature Party meeting. He said that his name was proposed by all 24 MLAs including Vipin Parmar, Satpal Satti, Balveer Verma, Janak Raj, and in a few moments his name was stamped. He said that Jai Ram Thakur did good work while in the state government and under his supervision the BJP would face the negative government of the Congress.

Jai Ram Thakur has remained the Joint Secretary, state ABVP (1986); Organizing Secretary, ABVP (J&K from 1989-93); secretary state BJYM (1993-95); president state BJYM and president BJP District Mandi (2000-03); vice president, State BJP (2003-05) and president, state BJP (2006-09).

He was first elected to the state Assembly in 1998; re-elected in 2003, 2007 from Chachiot Assembly Constituency and in 2012 and 2017 from Seraj Assembly Constituency; Before delimitation in 2007, Seraj Assembly segment was known as Chachiot. He has remained chief minister of Himachal Pradesh from December 27th, 2017 to December 8th, 2022. He was ee-elected to the Fourteenth Vidhan Sabha (6th term) this month.