After the Congress preferred the son of a cook of the Gandhi-Nehru family as its candidate for an assembly seat in Himachal Pradesh's Solan constituency ahead of the experienced Speaker Dharampal Thakur, the three-time legislator on Tuesday filed his nomination as an independent.
Thakur told PTI that he was fighting as an independent from the Arki seat under "pressure" from Congress workers.
The move apparently points that rebellion is brewing in the Congress with office bearers of all wings of the party in Arki block resigning in support of Thakur.
"All Congress office bearers in Arki block including me and those of NSUI, Seva Dal, Kisan Sabha and Mahila Congress have send resignations to party president Sonia Gandhi and Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh," Arki block Congress president Kanshi Ram Sharma said.
Another Congress leader Ramesh Thakur has served an ultimatum to the party to change its candidate Kailash Parasar from Solan and provide him a ticket, failing which he threatened to file his nomination as an independent.
The Congress has named Prakash Chand Karad, son of cook Padam Ram as its candidate from Arki.
Padam Ram of Banjan village here served as a cook first with late prime minister Indira Gandhi, her son Rajiv Gandhi and later with Sonia Gandhi while his father supplied food items to the family since the time of first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Claiming that "injustice" has been done to him by denying the ticket, Thakur said the Karad would loose security from this seat.
