Himachal Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Sunday asked his Cabinet colleague Anil Sharma to clarify whether he would quit the Government to campaign for his son and Congress candidate from Mandi Lok Sabha seat or support the BJP candidate there.
Congress greenhorn Ashray Sharma, who learnt politics for years from his father Anil Sharma, a Cabinet Minister in the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) state government, is in the fray from Mandi Lok Sabha seat. He is pitted against BJP's first-time MP Ram Swaroop Sharma.
Thakur took the tough stand and sought explanations from Anil Sharma, the state Power Minister, while taking to reporters at Paonta on his way to electioneering in Uttarakhand.
The Chief Minister said his Cabinet colleague Sharma must clear the "political cloud hovering over him on who would he campaign for -- his son or BJP candidate Ram Swaroop Sharma -- in Mandi.
Sharma must decide at the earliest weather he would join the Congress to help his son in the ensuing election or campaign for the BJP candidate in Mandi, said the Chief Minister.
He also made it clear that if Anil Sharma campaigns for his son, he will have to lose his Cabinet post and membership of the Himachal Pradesh assembly.
Thakur also refuted speculations over difference of opinion in the BJP on the issue of Sharma.
He said there is no second opinion on this issue in the party and what he is saying was the unanimous view of the party.
The Chief Minister also expressed confidence that the BJP will retain all the four parliamentary seats in Himachal Pradesh, increasing the BJP's victory margin over them, including the Mandi seat, which is seen as his home turf.
The Mandi Lok Sabha seat has been a traditional Congress bastion and it lost it for the first time in 1977. The constituency, which includes Kullu, Mandi and some areas of Chamba and Shimla districts, besides the tribal-dominated Assembly constituencies of Kinnaur and Lahaul and Spiti, is one of the country's largest.
Notably, popularly known as Panditji in his bastion of Mandi, six-time MLA and three-time MP Sukh Ram and his grandson Ashray Sharma had rejoined the Congress on March 25 after quitting the BJP.
At the launch of the Congress campaign, BJP leader Anil Sharma had earlier announced that he would campaign for his party but not against his son.
Political observers say Ashray Sharma is also cashing in on the legacy of his father Anil Sharma.
Anil Sharma, a MLA from Mandi, was a Minister in the state in 1993-97 and in 2012-17.
The Sukh Ram family joined the BJP just before the 2017 Assembly polls, with the former Minister saying he was being constantly humiliated by Virbhadra Singh.
Interestingly, Sukh Ram's tainted past has given an opportunity for Ashray Sharma's rivals to target him. Sukh Ram has been dubbed an ‘Aya Ram Gaya Ram'.
Sukh Ram had to resign as the Communications Minister in the P.V. Narasimha Rao government in 1996 in the wake of a financial scandal involving purchase of telecom equipment from a Hyderabad-based firm.
His known rival Virbhadra Singh, a six-time Chief Minister, is distancing himself from the new Congress entrant in his campaign.