Himachal Pradesh minister Anil Sharma said on Monday he will resign only if Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur asks him to, asserting that he will neither campaigning for his son Aashray Sharma, who is fighting the Lok Sabha polls as a Congress candidate, nor for the BJP candidate from Mandi.
"Neither I will campaign for my son nor for BJP candidate Ramswaroop Sharma from Mandi," the power minister told PTI a day after Thakur asked him to clarify whether he would quit his post and campaign for his son or he would campaign for the BJP candidate.
Sharma, son of former Union telecom minister Sukh Ram, is a BJP MLA from the Mandi Assembly segment which along with 16 other state legislature seats makes up the Mandi parliamentary constituency. His son Ashray is fighting the Lok Sabha polls on a Congress ticket from the seat.
BJP has fielded its sitting MP Ramswaroop Sharma from the constituency.
"If the chief minister feels an awkward position has been created for the BJP with my stand, he may ask me to resign (from the cabinet). (Remaining in) Government is not my priority. I will resign within no minutes, if the chief minister asks me to," Anil Sharma said.
"If I resign on my own, the BJP leadership will say I have resigned to support my son. So, I will not resign at my own. I will resign only when the chief minister asks me to do so," he added.
However, Sharma said that if the chief minister asks him, he will resign from the state Cabinet but will not quit the party. "I will remain as a BJP MLA."
He also questioned why BJP won't allocate two tickets to his family. "(Former CM Prem Kumar) Dhumal contested last Assembly elections from Sujanpur and now his son (sitting MP) Anurag Thakur has been fielded from Hamirpur."
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