Senior leader Shanta Kumar will work at the Central level, the party's Parliamentary board has decided.
The Bharatiya Janata Party leadership in Himachal Pradesh is making efforts to mollify party leaders who are disgruntled over distribution of tickets to six Congress rebels for the assembly bypolls, former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal said on Tuesday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday named its candidates for assembly bypolls in several states, fielding six disqualified MLAs of the Himachal Pradesh assembly in the state days after they joined the party after leaving the Congress.
Well ahead of the November 12 assembly elections, the BJP projected Thakur as the next chief minister.
Steel Minister Virbhadra Singh on Friday accused Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal of being behind the lodging of FIR against him and his wife in a graft case.
In a letter to Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, state Congress president Kuldeep Singh Rathore said Gandhi had laid the foundation stone on June 28, 2010 in the presence of the then CM Prem Kumar Dhumal and Union minister Virbhadra Singh.
'The government has pushed HP in a debt trap. Nepotism has reached the zenith,' says senior Congress leader Anand Sharma.
The Uttarakhand assembly poll result has presented the Bharatiya Janata Party with a dilemma of sorts as it weighs various options after outgoing chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami who was tipped to continue in the post lost the election even as the party stormed back to power.
With the party bagging its first victory in the hill state without the charismatic presence of Virbhadra Singh, Sukhu's elevation makes it clear that the party is ready to move on.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which won 25 seats in the Himachal Pradesh elections, suffered a setback in the assembly segments falling under Shimla, Hamirpur and Kangra parliamentary constituencies in the hill state.
Congress sources said internal surveys indicate that the party is likely to get a majority in Himachal polls leading to increasing the number of contenders for the chief minister's post.
IN PIX: The big WINNERS in Himachal Pradesh
Governor Acharya Devvrat administered the oath of office and secrecy to the 52-year-old Thakur, a five-time MLA from Seraj, and other ministers which included six new faces.
Sukhu, the 58-year-old MLA from Nadaun in Hamirpur district, was elected the the CLP leader and will take oath as chief minister Sunday, the party said.
Battle lines have been drawn for Sunday's poll for the 68-member Himachal Pradesh assembly where political heavyweights Prem Kumar Dhumal and Virbhadra Singh are jostling for the attention of voters, for whom the issue of price rise and corruption seems to have surpassed the anti-incumbency factor.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has cleared the first list of 45 candidates for the Himachal Pradesh assembly elections. Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, five of his ten ministers and 15 sitting Members of Legislative Assembly figure in the list cleared by the Central Election Committee, chaired by party president Nitin Gadkari and attended among others by patriarch Lal Krishna Advani.
The intersection of economics and politics will be crucial to assembly poll verdict in Himachal Pradesh, wites Aditi Phadnis
As soon as the day breaks, the silence in this VVIP segment is broken by slogans for Bharatiya Janata Party's re-election to power and leading the campaign is its chief ministerial candidate Prem Kumar Dhumal who is meeting locals with a tiny "induction chulha" in his hands.
Anurag Thakur, son of Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal and president of the Bhartiya Yuva Janata Dal, is confident that the Bharatiya Janata Party will return to power in the state with more than two-thirds majority.
Kumar had made comments against the Prem Kumar Dhumal government in Himachal Pradesh before the election.
The Himachal Pradesh government on Tuesday said it has not received any information from the Centre regarding any 'clean chit' given to Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorji in connection with the recovery of foreign currency.
Smriti Irani, actor-turned politician of the 'saas-bahu' TV serial fame, was on Tuesday appointed as head of Bharatiya Janata Party's Women's Wing while Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal's son and Member of Parliament Anurag Thakur will head the Youth Wing of the main opposition.
The Himachal Pradesh government has no plans of banning expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh's controversial book on Pakistan founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal said. "Thousands of books hit the stands everyday. ... Why should the state government bother about those," he told reporters. Of the six BJP ruled states, including Himachal Pradesh, only Gujarat has banned the book so far.
The Himachal Pradesh government has decided to honour World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) wrestler Daleep Singh Rana alias Khali. "The state will honour Khali, a native of Sirmaur district," Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal's office told PTI on Tuesday.
The British era Gaiety theatre -- the only theatre in Victorian Gothic style in Asia -- was formally dedicated to the people by Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal after its renovation in Shimla today.
Alarmed by the Naina Devi temple tragedy, the Himachal Pradesh government on Monday constituted a three-member panel to formulate guidelines for regulation of pilgrim movement in the state's major shrines and said it will consider introducing the 'Vaishno Devi model' for the purpose.Mandi Divisional Commissioner Ashwani Kapoor has been asked to probe Sunday's stampede at Bilaspur district that claimed over 140 lives.
The Congress said on Sunday that the name of former cricketer Madan Lal is under consideration for the presitigious seat to take on Bharatiya Janata Party's Anurag Thakur, son of Himachal Pradesh chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal
Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal denied phone tapping charges levelled against him by Union Minister Virbhadra Singh and urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to order a probe into the allegation on Friday.
A week after the death of a medical student allegedly due to ragging, the Himachal Pradesh government says it is preparing to bring in a new ordinance to check the menace since the one issued in 1992 was neither revalidated nor replaced by a legislative enactment.
Prem Kumar Dhumal, who led the Bharatiya Janata Party to a spectacular victory in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly polls, was sworn in as Chief Minister of the state for the second time on Sunday. Governor V S Kokje administered the oath of office and secrecy to the 63-year-old veteran BJP leader at a public ceremony at the historic Ridge Maidan in Shimla.BJP stalwart L K Advani, party vice-presidents Shanta Shanta and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi attended the function.
Former Himachal Pradesh chief minister and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Prem Kumar Dhumal on Tuesday won Hamirpur Lok Sabha by-election defeating Congress candidate Ram Lal Thakur by over 80,000 votes.
Neither Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi nor Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal will be present at the occasion. "We have received an encouraging response from all the states and over two lakh participants would be taking part in the rally. Besides L K Advani, BJP president Rajnath Singh would be present, along with other leaders. We are not sure who all are coming. We can let you know only by tomorrow," said the coordinator of the rally.
'No one will be allowed to stand in the way of the BJP wave,' says Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has won the Hamirpur Lok Sabha by-election, with its candidate Anurag Thakur drubbing his nearest rival, the Congress's O P Rattan, by over 1,74,000 votes.
The absence of Leader of Opposition L K Advani in Sunday's Ram Sethu rally has ruffled the feelings of the Sangh Parivar that seemed to have patched up after he was chosen to lead the BJP in the next Lok Sabha elections.
'If we win, the semi-finals will be in Rajasthan, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh,' says BJP President Venkaiah Naidu.
The raids were conducted following reports of alleged power theft, official sources said.
Voters in Himachal Pradesh have traditionally brought the Congress and the BJP in power alternately.
When Nirmala Sitharaman and Narendra Tomar arrived in Shimla, they could not have anticipated the scene that awaited them.