The women and youth wing of BJP have intensified their door-to-door campaign in Mandi constituency where BJP candidate Ram Swarup Sharma, a grass roots worker, is challenging Pratibha Singh, wife of Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh.
“The mini-groups are educating the masses against the Congress which had let loose the scammers to loot the State exchequer fearlessly over the past 60 years and deposited the loot in foreign banks and no steps have been taken to retrieved the ill-gotten wealth back to India,” said Pravin Sharma, the State media in charge of the BJP.
Party candidate Ram Swaroop Sharma said a strong undercurrent against Congress was building across the State and the common man seemed to have made up his mind to overthrow the corrupt rulers at the Centre and Himachal. He said there was overwhelming “support and sympathy” of the people for him as he came from a poor farming family with limited resources. He said the proposed April 29 Narendra Modi rally in Mandi would further strengthen his position and the defeat of Congress seemed to be certain.
“On one side there was an influential wife of a fabulously rich Raja and six-time Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh and on the other an ordinary worker like me. It was a fight between diya aur toofan (an earthen lamp and typhoon),” he remarked, adding that he drew his strength from the people who were tremendously responding to the call of an unblemished leader Narendra Modi to make India Congress free.
Congress candidate Pratibha Singh, is also leaving no stone unturned to win by a bigger majority than that of 2013 byelection. She went door to door in villages in the outskirts of Mandi in Dudar and Tungal Valley. Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, will address a rally at Mandi on May 2 soon after Modi’s rally on April 29. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will address a rally at Solan on May 3.