Ramesh said a report will be presented to the Congress president by the observers at the earliest after listening to everyone.
Himachal Pradesh Congress: The results and the voting pattern in the Rajya Sabha elections in the hill state of Himachal Pradesh held on Tuesday have not gone down well with the Congress party where the BJP pulled off an upset by defeating Congress’s Abhishek Manu Singhvi allegedly because of cross-voting by six of the party’s MLAs.
Commenting on the situation on Wednesday, senior party leader and general secretary Jairam Ramesh has said that some senior party leaders are in the hill state to meet the legislators and a report will be presented to party chief Mallikarjun Kharge.
Jairam Ramesh accused the BJP of trying to topple the Congress government. “The leadership will not shy away from harsh decisions as the party is supreme,” he said adding, “Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, and AICC in-charge Rajeev Shukla are there. They have spoken with the Congress president. He has told them to meet and listen to all MLAs about their grievances and demands.”
“Cross-voting took place. But the conspiracy to topple the Congress government, what steps are to be taken by the party to tackle this ‘Operation Lotus’, Congress president has told these senior colleagues to meet everyone and listen to what they have to say and present him a report at the earliest,” said Ramesh.
He said the priority is to save the Congress government and added that accountability will be fixed over the recent developments.
“Cross-voting is unfortunate. Our Observers will discuss this in their report. Accountability will definitely be fixed. Accountability was fixed in Haryana. There are two parts of this report – first, why did the cross-voting happen here and how was it allowed to happen. Second, what steps should be taken to save the government and uphold the mandate? When the report comes, discussions will be held and decision will be made. Until then, all reports and speculations are baseless,” he said adding that Congress had received a clear mandate in the December 2022 assembly polls.
“The people of Himachal Pradesh had rejected the PM, Jagat Prakash Nadda, Anurag Thakur, and Jairam Thakur. The mandate was for the Congress party. So, this mandate should be respected. Modi government has just one guarantee – topple all Congress Governments. We will not let this happen,” he said.
Ramesh said a report will be presented to the Congress president by the observers at the earliest after listening to everyone.
“Based on that further steps will definitely be taken. Maybe some harsh decisions will have to be made but we won’t shy away from that. Organisation is supreme. Congress party is supreme,” he said.
Himachal has a 68-member state assembly out of which Congress has 40 MLAs while the BJP has 25 and three are independents.
(With ANI inputs)
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