Shimla, April 18
The Congress has finally decided to field Anita Rana, wife of Congress candidate from the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat Rajinder Rana, as its candidate for the Sujanpur Assembly byelection to be held on May 7 along with the parliamentary polls.

Anita will file her nomination paper in Sujanpur tomorrow in the presence of senior party leaders. There was reservation among a section of the party leadership regarding fielding both husband and wife. But Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh was able to convince the party high command to make the decision in favour of Rana’s wife. He felt that Rana had resigned as an MLA to contest the Lok Sabha election on the Congress ticket. Hence, his wife should be fielded. Some of the party leaders, including Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee president Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu, were of the opinion that a person from the organisation should be fielded. It was also felt that fielding Anita Rana could also send a signal that being on a weak footing in the Lok Sabha seat Congress gave the ticket to Rana’s wife.

The BJP has already announced Narinder Thakur as its candidate from Sujanpur. Thakur is the son of former BJP stalwart Jagdev Chand, who had joined the Congress but returned to the party fold a few days back. He was rewarded with the BJP ticket from Sujanpur.

Others who were in the race for the Congress ticket included former minister and All-India Mahila Congress president Anita Verma, Hamirpur District Congress Committee (DCC) president Naresh Thakur and Urmil Thakur, former BJP MLA who joined the Congress only last week.