SHIMLA: Former Himachal Pradesh minister and BJP leader from Lahaul and Spiti assembly constituency, Ram Lal Markanda, on Tuesday quit the party to protest the fielding of Congress rebel Ravi Thakur who had defeated him on the seat in the last assembly election.Hours after the BJP announced assembly tickets to all the six former Congress MLAs, disqualified from the House, Markanda quit the party and announced that he will contest the bypoll from Lahaul and Spiti, possibly as a Congress candidate.Markanada was the agriculture and tribal development minister during the previous BJP government led by Jai Ram Thakur.He had lost the 2022 assembly elections to Thakur, who was then in the Congress, by a margin of 1542 votes.He was a frontrunner for the BJP ticket from Lahaul and Spiti.He resigned from the BJP as Congress rebel Thakur was named in the BJP list for assembly bypoll from the assembly constituency.The Himachal Pradesh Assembly bypolls will be held on June 1, along with the election to the four Lok Sabha seats in the state — Hamirpur, Shimla, Mandi and Kangra.”I have left the BJP today along with my supporters and would definitely contest the assembly polls,” he told PTI over the phone.A meeting of Lahaul and Spiti core committee has been convened tonight to chalk out the future strategy, Markanda said.It is unfortunate that the BJP is taking such people who are against reservation and had hurled abuses against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the past, he said.”I will contest the assembly bypolls for sure. There is a possibility of my contesting from the Congress party,” he said.”My people want me to contest elections for the development of Lahaul and Spiti,” he said.
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