Prem Kumar Dhumal, the BJP’s chief-ministerial candidate in Himachal Pradesh for the just-concluded Assembly polls, got a huge reprieve this morning when a party MLA offered to resign his post so as to enable Dhumal to get elected to become an MLA and thus the chief-minister.

The BJP, which has unseated the ruling Congress Govt. Headed by veteran Virbhadra Singh, has managed to get ‘absolute majority’ by winning exactly a two-thirds majority in the 68-member Assembly. With 44 seats, it is in an unassailable position and is likely to form the Govt. this week. The huge victory, however, has been marred by the defeat of Dhumal who lost to his Congress rival by considerable number of votes.

Even as the BJP has started the process of finding another leader to head the party in the Assembly as the chief-minister by opting between Union Health Minister JP Nadda and senior BJP leader Jai Ram Thakur, party MLA Virendra Kumar, who has been elected for the third time from Kutlehar, has offered to resign his post so as to enable Dhumal to contest from the seat and get elected to the Assembly.

Whether or not BJP would take Kumar’s offer and allow Dhumal to contes from Kutlehar is anybody’s guess as the BJP sticks with its decision to ask leaders to ‘retire’ from active politics once they reach 75, which is just two years in Dhumal’s case!