Himachal: Vijai Singh Mankotia joins BJP, AICC secretary Rakesh Kalia also embraces ruling party
Shimla: Politics makes strange bed-fellows or to say there are no friends and foes in the politics.
This is true for veteran Kangra politician and ex-soldier Major (Rtd) Vijai Singh Mankotia, who joined the BJP –almost a seventh party, if his "outgoing and in-coming" in the Congress is also counted.
Mankotia was welcomed to BJP by party's national President J P Nadda at his village –Vijaypur in Bilaspur. Nadda said the party will get a lot of strength in the Kangra region on joining Mankotia, who will be given due honour and respect in the party.
Former PCC working President Harsh Mahajan, who had surprised the state's political circles by joining the BJP, was also present at the time when Mankotia took BJP membership.
Initially, it was the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which extended an olive branch to Mankotia but after initial rounds of talks, the former Congress minister chose not to join Arvind Kejriwal's party.
Till now Mankotia, who first was elected as an independent from Shahpur in Kangra had later joined the congress. But when revolted against then Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and also levelled certain allegations, he switched the gear and joined the Loktantrik Party, later Janata Dal under V.P Singh and even unsuccessfully contested the Kangra Lok Sabha seat in 1989.
After hopping to BSP, which also made him a chief ministerial face, Mankotia also came back to the congress and even was inducted as cabinet minister –a post that he did not hold for a long time.
Mankotia's entry to the BJP seems to be aimed not only to create problems for the congress in Shahpur but also mobilise ex-servicemen votes as Mankotia is also chairmen of the Indian Ex-servicemen league.
But two months back when the centre government rolled-out "Agniveer" scheme, Mankotia took it to the social media to raise serious objections and asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to withdraw the scheme as it will, neither be in the
interests of the youths nor national to implement such a scheme.
In another blow to the congress, a three-time MLA and AICC secretary Rakesh Kalia joined the BJP as he was denied ticket from Gagret in Una district where the party has chosen to field Chaitangya Sharma, a new face.
The BJP also has its share of troubles in the state as was forced to drop party senior Maheshwar Singh as its candidate from Kullu because his son Hiteshwar Singh had filed his nomination papers as independent candidate from Banjar.
Party insiders say Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur and senior leaders had held talks with Maheshwar Singh, who was told to convince his son not to contest if he (Maheshwar Singh) was to stay in the fray.
"Initially, both agreed to the formula but later Maheshwar Singh told the party that his son has decided to go ahead with his plan to contest as an independent candidate. This left the party with no option rather than withdrawing the ticket from Maheswar Singh", said a BJP leader.
BJP has not named Narotam Thakur as its candidate from Kullu.
Hours before closure of the nominations on Tuesday, Congress cleared the name of Dr Pushpendra Verma –son of former minister Ranjit Verma for Hamirpur.
