Congress captures Shimla Zila Parishad

Shimla, Jan 27 (PTI) Faction-ridden Congress todaycaptured the Shimla Zila Parishad winning posts of chairpersonand vice-chairperson after union minister Virbhadra Singh andstate Opposition leader Vidya Stokes arrived at a consensus oncandidates name.

Aniruddh Thakur of Congress defeated Indu Verma ofBJP for the post of chairperson, while Prahalad Kashyap ofCongress defeated the BJP-backed candidate Surinder Singh forthe post of Vice chairperson.

The meeting of Shimla Zila parishad was deferredtwice as the Congress party which had eleven members andsupport of two other non-BJP members in the 24-member councilcould not reach any consensus on the candidates and did notattend the meeting.

But finally Singh and Vidya Stokes arrived at aconsensus at the meeting of the Zila Parishad members anddecided the names. The two CPI (M) members also supported theCongress candidate.

Thakur got 14 votes against nine votes polled forVerma for the post of chairperson, while Kashyap also received14 votes against 10 for Surinder Singh.

Later, Virbhadra Singh rubbished the claims of factionin the state Congress and claimed there is unity in the party.