With Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh starting his election campaign on Tuesday from Bharmour for the Mandi parliamentary by-polls, both Congress and BJP are all set to finalise the candidates and woo the voters.
State Congress president Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu has rushed to Delhi to finalise the names of the probable candidates after discussing it with the Central leadership.
According to party sources, Chief Minister’s wife Pratibha Singh is likely to contest the elections and therefore, Singh has planned an intensive campaign in the entire parliamentary constituency.
Mandi parliamentary seat had fallen vacant after Singh was sworn in as chief minister. Pratibha Singh had earlier also represented the Mandi seat in Parliament and therefore stands the most probable candidate for the party.
However, party said that name of the candidate will be finalised after the notification of the election schedule on May 21 or 22 and the elections are likely to be held in the third week of June.
On other hand, Opposition BJP is grappling to finalise a suitable candidate, has called a meeting of State Election Committee (SEC) on May 17 at Sunder Nagar of Mandi district to arrive at a consensus.
BJP has three probable candidates — Jai Ram Thakur, Ram Swaroop Sharma and Ajai Rana, and if the consensus does not arrive on any single name then the panel of names will be sent to the Central Election Committee (CEC).
BJP State president Satpal Singh Satti said that the party is all set to face the ruling Congress and a suitable as well as effective candidate will be fielded in the by-elections.
Senior BJP leader and former national vice-president Shanta Kumar is also likely to participate in the SEC meeting, but sources said that though Satti has invited him, his participation in the meeting is uncertain.
The candidate winning the Mandi parliamentary polls will hold office for less than a year as the tenure of the current Parliament would expire by May 2014.