Shimla, January 27: Faction-ridden Congress today captured the Shimla Zila Parishad winning posts of chairperson and vice-chairperson after union minister Virbhadra Singh and state Opposition leader Vidya Stokes arrived at a consensus on candidates name.
Aniruddh Thakur of Congress defeated Indu Verma of BJP for the post of chairperson, while Prahalad Kashyap of Congress defeated the BJP-backed candidate Surinder Singh for the post of Vice chairperson.
The meeting of Shimla Zila parishad was deferred twice as the Congress party which had eleven members and support of two other non-BJP members in the 24-member council could not reach any consensus on the candidates and did not attend the meeting.
But finally Singh and Vidya Stokes arrived at a consensus at the meeting of the Zila Parishad members and decided the names. The two CPI (M) members also supported the Congress candidate.
–Agencies