Kuldeep Singh appointed HP Cong chief

Shimla: In a sudden move, Congress President Rahul Gandhi appointed on Thursday Kuldeep Singh Rathore as new HPCC president replacing Sukhwinder Sukhu, a sitting MLA.

Rathore, 59, a staunch loyalist of former union minister Anand Sharma, is basically an organisational man as having served as PCC general secretary and party's chief spokesman under different PCC presidents including Kaul Singh Thakur, Viplove

Thakur and late Sat Mahajan earlier.

Sukhu, 54, was appointed Congress president in Himachal Pradesh in April 2013 after the party had formed the government in 2012-13 under Virbhadra Singh, who quit the PCC president's post under one man, one post rule.

But the two never saw eye-to-eye on the Congress matters. Before 2012 state assembly polls, which Congress lost, Virbhadra Singh had been persistently seeking his removal from the PCC post. He even, at one stage had threatened not to campaign in the polls if Sukhu was not removed.

All his threats did not work till sometime back, Anand Sharma chose to back Rathore for the PCC president post. This seems to have made the task easy for Virbhadra Singh to get Sukhu replaced, ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

Sukhu was in Delhi at the Congress headquarters when he was conveyed the decision to make Rathore as PCC chief.

Initially, the name of former minister Kaul Singh Thakur was also being pushed by AICC in charge Rajini Patil but Rahul Gandhi chose to prefer a younger face.

Two other names viz Asha Kumari, currently AICC in charge for Punjab, was also was considered, besides Harvardhan Chauhan, a five-time MLA. Asha Kumari's role in Punjab, especially was Lok Sabha poll, was given more weightage than she being tipped for the state Congress post.

Reacting to the change Congress Legislature party president Mukesh Agnihotri welcomed the party's decision to affect changes in the Congress to give a new look to the organisation set-up in the wake of Lok Sabha polls.

"The Congress values the contributions of Sukhu as PCC president. However, when Rahul Gandhi was rebuilding the party to give a befitting fight to the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls, the change will definitely be a good take-off point."

A lawyer by profession, Rathore wanted to contest the state assembly polls in 2017. He lost his race to the ticket from Shimla (Urban) and also Theog.

It's his loyalist to Anand Sharma, which seems to have paid him off even as reports said he had also managed to mobilise support from Virbhadra Singh.

Virbhadra Singh had openly predicted that Congress will end up 4:0 in the Lok Sabha polls under Sukhu.