Virbhadra Singh says Congress will win two seats, mum on rest

SHIMLA: Ending the speculations over whether he would campaign for grandson of former Union minister Sukh Ram in Mandi parliamentary seat or not, Congress leader Virbhadra Singh said that he would campaign for the party on all four parliamentary seats. The former chief minister, however, continued to pitch for Abhishek Rana, son of Sujanpur MLA Rajinder Singh Rana, for Hamirpur seat.Abhishek would have been a better choice than Naina Devi MLA Ram Lal Thakur, Virbhadra said.
What's more, he predicted that the Congress would surely win Kangra and Shimla (SC) parliamentary seats, leaving out Mandi and Hamirpur. While not rebelling against his party openly, Virbhadra continued to criticize several of Congress high command's decision.
"I am development oriented person and have never worked with political vendetta," Virbhadra said. "Former Union telecom minister Sukh Ram, along with his grandson Aashray Sharma, had met me in Delhi after the Congress gave ticket to Aashray from Mandi. Sukh Ram has sought help from me for campaigning in Mandi and I am surely going there as I have no personal reason to oppose him," he said.
He said that neither him nor any one from his family had sought ticket from Mandi. He said that party fielded Naina Devi MLA Ram Lal Thakur from Hamirpur parliamentary seat but in his opinion Abhishek Rana could have been better choice. He said that Rajinder Rana had defeated former CM Prem Kumar Dhumal on Sujanpur seat in the 2017 assembly election and Abhishek had the potential to defeat Anurag Thakur.
"It was said by some that Abhishek is only 26 years old but this logic was unjustified, in my opinion he would have been best candidate," he said.
Virbhadra said that it would have been better of the tickets were decided much earlier. "I had told the party high command in advance that CLP leader Mukesh Agnihotri is needed in the state to perform his job so his name was never there in the race for ticket from Hamirpur seat," he added.