With Union Minister Virbhadra Singh returning to Delhi on Sunday morning after spending the Diwali night in Shimla, Congress candidate for Rohru Manjit Singh now looks up to Pradesh Congress Committee president Kaul Singh Thakur for his company during filing nominations on Monday.

A Block Samiti chairman, Manjit has been given the Congress ticket overruling the claim of Virbhadra’s wife and former MP Pratibha Singh. The seat, a stronghold of the former Himachal Pradesh chief minister for the last 20 years, will go to polls on November 7.

When Manjit, an estranged Virbhadra loyalist, visited the Union minister to seek his support to retain the Congress seat, he was reportedly told to mobilise the local cadres. “I requested him (Virbhadra) to stay back in Rohru till tomorrow when I will file my nomination. He expressed his inability in view of his prior engagements in Delhi,” Manjit told The Indian Express.

According to insiders, though Virbhadra assured the PCC president of campaigning for Manjit in Rohru in two separate phases, he was upset with the manner he was “humiliated” as the high command denied ticket to Pratibha.

The Block Congress Committee and the District Congress Committee had proposed only one name — that of Pratibha Singh — for the Rohru ticket. Manjit and another Congress leader, however, separately applied for the ticket, dissociating themselves from the Congress recommendation.

The party chose Manjit. “I had been a member of the Rohru Zila Parishad from 2001 to 2006. Before that, I was pradhan of a gram panchayat. I am a grassroot party worker,” said the Congress candidate.

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