On Sunday, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra attended the oath taking ceremony of the new Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, and his deputy CM Mukesh Agnihotri at Ridge Maidan in Shimla.
Right after the newly elected leaders took the oath of office, a garlanded portrait of the late Virbhadra Singh, a former royal and six-time chief minister of the hill state, was shown on stage, and all the politicians presented folded hands in respect. Along with the Gandhis, party leader Mallikarjun Kharge attended the significant ceremony.
Rahul Gandhi, Congress MP, was also seen on stage giving Pratibha Singh, the late Virbhadra Singh’s wife, a bear embrace. The other candidate for the top position was Ms. Singh, who even asserted her claim by giving the party high command a quiet but firm warning.
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It would be “a disaster” to exclude her husband’s family because the elections were fought and won in honour of her spouse Virbhadra Singh, who passed away last year. She did not, however, have popular support among the newly elected 40 MLAs of the grand old party, which is why she was removed from the race, according to sources.
The Gandhis’ action is an outreach to Pratibha Singh’s irate fans, who had gathered outside the hotel where the party’s central observers were staying and chanted in the politician’s defence. Before the party’s vital conference, they even stopped the car of Bhupesh Baghel, the chief minister of Chhattisgarh, one of the key observers, to provide a clear message to the leadership.
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