After three days of stating that the party wouldn’t declare the CM face, BJP has finally relented and Party President Amit Shah today declared the former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal as party CM for the assembly election of State. Reporting arriving here that party have to take U-turn to control damage in the assembly election as the party was not able to counter the anti-incumbency against the Modi government over the issue of Demonetization and GST.
Party president who was announcing election meeting at Rajgarh in Sirmaur district today announced Mr Dhumal as CM face. Amit Shah arrived at Shimla last evening held a meeting at Cecil hotel of Oberoi Clarks group hotel last night in which Mr. Dhumal, Union Health Minister J P Nadda, Party state in charge Mangal Pandey, Thawar Singh Gahlot and Ramswarop. Mr. Panday and Mr. Gahlot put forth the name of Mr. Dhumal in the meeting.
Mr. Dhumal is star campaigner in the state and fighting the election from Sujanpur Assembly seat. Mr. Dhumal became vice-president of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha in 1982. In 1984, he was selected as the candidate for the Hamirpur parliamentary constituency when the sitting Member of the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly (MLA), and state stalwart Jagdev Chand, refused to stand.
Mr Dhumal lost that election won in 1989 and 1991, and lost the seat to Vikram Singh Katoch in 1996. After the sudden death of Jagdev Chand in 1993] Mr. Dhumal became active in state politics. He was president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Himachal Pradesh from 1993 and became the state’s Chief Minister in March 1998 after winning the Bamsan constituency of the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly with a margin of 18,000 votes.
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He headed the BJP-Himachal Vikas Congress coalition government for its full statutory term of five years and became Leader of the Opposition when the BJP lost power in 2003, winning only 16 seats despite support from the NDA Union government. The period also saw significant infrastructure developments, particularly of roads, and gave rise to Dhumal being called the Sadak walla Chief Minister. Mr. Dhumal resigned his seat in the Himachal Pradesh legislative assembly upon winning the Hamirpur constituency in a 2007 by-election for the Lok Sabha.
The by-election came about because of the expulsion of Suresh Chandel, a BJP Member of Parliament who had been involved in a cash-for-questions scandal. A further by-election in May 2008 saw Mr Dhumal replaced as MP by his son, Anurag Thakur. Mr. Dhumal became Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh for a second time after being sworn-in on 30 December 2007 after the BJP won that year’s assembly elections. The BJP lost power in the 2012 elections.
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