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'After Virbhadra, Shanta faces heat of politics on shepherd community of Himachal'

DHARAMSALA: Kangra and Chamba districts have major population of shepherd community of Himachal Pradesh , the Gaddi tribe, it is around three lakhs. Now, after former Congress CM Vribhadra Singh, it is sitting BJP MP Shanta Kumar facing heat of Gaddi politics.


In 2017 assembly polls the congress has suffered losses due to annoyance of Gaddi tribe.



On Saturday few sections of vernacular media quoted Kumar saying that upcoming elections are general elections and are not community based elections, he was said to be reacting to the demand of Gaddi unions to project their own candidate for elections.

Kumar had denied that he did not issued any such statement. “I have not issued any such statement but I said that this are general elections and every community has the right to stake claims” he said.

But Gaddi Union leaders have reacted to the reports. It was also alleged that it is propaganda by few BJP leaders and congress was taking advantage of same.

From tribal morcha of Congress, Jagdish Chand and Rajesh Kapoor have given a three days time to Kumar to seek apology for his statement which has downplayed the shepherd community of Himachal.

Madan Bharmouri, the national vice president of tribal morcha from Congress also opposed the statement. With him, the youth leader from Gaddi Community, state secretary of NSUI, Surjeet Bharmouri said that BJP leader’s statement reveals his vision for the people of this community.

Gaddi leaders have already called a meeting on March 24 of the community to strengthen their claims to give ticket to a leader of their community. It was on March 13 that few of these Gaddi leaders organized a press conference raising their demand for ticket.

It was on Friday that a closed door meeting was held by BJP, Kumar had received a major support from cabinet ministers, MLAs and other prominent leaders of the party from Kangra and Chamba district .


Meeting was held at a resort near here to form strategies for polls ahead. The meeting was chaired by Kumar.

The BJP leaders whose names were taking rounds for party ticket remained absent from this meeting.

Those who didn’t attended the meeting were includes BJP MLAs Ramesh Dhawala, Rakesh Pathania, the state women cell head Indu Goswami from Palampur , former MLA Dullo Ram and national vice president of tribal morcha Tirlok Kapoor.

It was during the congress regime that a lathi charge on people of Gaddi community triggered the annoyance of this section and many congress leaders lost seats in 2017 assembly elections.

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