Senior leader Vidya Stokes vacates her Vidhan Sabha seat for Virbhadra

Shimla, Oct 18: In a politically unexpected move, the senior most Congress leader in the hill State and once a foe of Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, Vidya Stokes (89) has decided to pass on her political legacy and vacate Theog Vidhan Sabha seat for her main rival in the State politics. Being very close to the party high command president Sonia Gandhi, Ms Stokes was the major contender for the CM post in 2003 and 2012 when the Congress came to power in HP. But all her political escalations were thwarted by the Virbhadra Singh's camp every time and she has too confine as junior to Mr Singh. At times, Ms Stokes was only supported by former Union Minister Anand Sharma, State leaders like Kaul Singh Thakur, Sukhwinder Singh, Major (Rtd.) and Vijay Singh Mankotia. The announcement about her retirement has not surprised many in the party but her deliberate offering and invitation to the CM to fight from her traditional constituency baffled many leaders within the party and outside. Ms Stokes didn't even considered any of her long time supporters or family members (though majority of them live abroad) to continue her political legacy in this constituency, said one of the former general secretaries of the party from this constituency. Mr Singh has already vacated the adjoining constituency of Shimla Rural for his son Vikram Aditya and had decided to monitor the overall election campaign for the party this time. But the formal invitation by the octogenarian Ms Stokes when she landed with hundreds of her supporters in his official residence on Sunday has forced the Ms Singh to once again stake his claim for getting a party ticket. The party will now have to bend the rule of giving only one ticket from one family if Mr Singh wants to fight again, said the party insiders. Meanwhile, the central election committee meeting of Congress would take place tonight in New Delhi and it is being attended by all senior party leaders and sitting MLAs. No candidate from the both the main parties filed their nominations on Monday as the final lists of candidates are yet to be decided. UNI