In a significant move, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday dissolved the entire Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) unit in Himachal Pradesh with immediate effect. All the district and block units have also been dissolved.
Himachal Pradesh is one of the three states where the party has its own chief minister.
“Hon’ble Congress President has approved the proposal to dissolve the entire state unit of the PCC, District Presidents and Block Congress Committees of Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee, with immediate effect,” party general secretary K.C. Venugopal said in a statement.
According to reports, the move is seen as the Congress’s plan to restructure the state unit which has been grappling with dissent. The fissures in the party was wide open during the Rajya Sabha election in February, when party candidate Abhishek Singhvi lost the poll after some MLAs defected to BJP and cross-voted to opposition candidate Harsh Mahajan.
Mahajan, himself, had joined the BJP when he was a working president of the state Congress.
Singhvi was defeated through a draw of lots after the two candidates bagged 34 votes each. In the 68-member House, the Congress had 40 seats and the support of three independents, while the BJP had only 25 members.
Pratibha Singh, wife of former chief minister Virbhadra Singh, is the outgoing president of the Himachal Congress. Pratibha, who was appointed as state Congress chief in April 2022, has been inducted into the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the highest decision-making body of the party.
State ministers Anirudh Singh and Harshvardhan Chauhan are among the names doing the rounds for the next party chief.