What’s cooking at 10, Janpath?

The flavour of the electoral season in Himachal Pradesh appears to be 10, Janpath.

The flavour of the electoral season in Himachal Pradesh appears to be 10, Janpath.

After giving a ticket to Nand Lal, an SPG officer and part of the security cover at Sonia Gandhi’s home, the Congress has now given one to the son of a former cook of the Gandhis.

When the AICC released its final list of candidates for 65 seats on Sunday, Prakash Chand Karad found a place among the candidates, of whom nearly 15 are first-timers.

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Prakash’s 95-year-old father, Padam Ram, was once a cook for the Gandhis—he worked for Indira, Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi for more than three decades.

Karad has replaced the state Assembly’s Deputy Speaker Dharampal Thakur, a three-time MLA and a senior Congress leader from Solan. This has triggered a rebellion in the party, with almost the entire Congress unit in the constituency tendering their resignations in protest.

Says Sita Ram Sarthi, president of the Congress’ Kunihar unit in Arki in Solan from where Karad has got a ticket, “Till a week earlier Karad was hobnobbing with the BSP. We wonder who managed to get him a ticket?”

Karad is not saying either. All he’s willing to share is, “My father worked in the staff of the Prime Ministers. He retired some six to seven years ago but still occasionally visits 10 Janpath to maintain his age-old relations with the Gandhis.”

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Meanwhile, Karad, who runs a petrol pump at Kunihar and is also the vice-chairman of the SC/ST legal cell in the district Congress, is busy taking congratulatory calls. He has set his caller tune to Sapne to apne hote hain from the film Apne that starred Dharmendra and sons Sunny Deol and Bobby. “We are also two brothers like Sunny and Bobby. My father must have also seen a dream, like Dharmendra,” he says.

And it’s almost come true.