After hectic lobbying and an intense intra-party squabbling over the party nominee for speaker post, finally disgruntled camp of state Congress got something to smile as congress unanimously proposed veteran leader Brij Bihari Butail as the Speaker of the state assembly in the opening assembly session at Tapovan, Dharmshala.
Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh’s camp was backing Chintpurni MLA Kuldeep Kumar for the prestigious post, but after the intervention of the party high command, party has to consider Butail’s name for the coveted constitutional post.
Brij Bihari Butail, a veteran and richest politician in Himachal Pradesh assembly, was once considered close associate of Chief Minister, and had remained cabinet minister in his previous Govt but later dropped from the Govt and made political advisor to Chief Minister. However, after 2007 assembly election Butail had sided with union minister Anand Sharma, who is aiming to control state’s party affair, proved politically wrong to him. Though during election campaign, Virbhadra Singh stunned political pundits as he campaigned for him in his Palampur assembly segment, where he had lauded Butail and his family’s contribution for Palampur region and Congress and promised party workers (in his address) with the bigger responsibility in the Govt.
After the assembly poll results and fantastic victory in Palampur, it was expected that Brij Bihari Lal Butail would be included into the cabinet, but he was ignored and junior leader like Sudhir Sharma were rated above him and included in the cabinet. However it didn’t go well with the disgruntled camp and lobbied hard with party High-Command.
