Beating ‘anti-incumbency’, Anurag retains Hamirpur
Shimla, June 4
Union Minister Anurag Thakur today beat anti-incumbency and the adverse impact of the Agnipath scheme to register his fifth consecutive win from the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat by a margin of 1.82 lakh.
The BJP got a lead in all 17 Assembly segments falling in the Hamirpur seat. However, Anurag’s victory margin came down from 3.99 lakh votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections to 1.82 lakh votes this time. What is even more creditable is that not only did he win the seat, which is the home district of Chief Minister, but also managed to get a lead of 2,143 votes in Nadaun, the home Assembly seat of Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.
There were 12 candidates contesting from the Hamirpur seat but the direct fight was between Congress candidate Satpal Raizada, former Una MLA, and Anurag. Raizada put up a good fight but could not secure a lead from his own segment of Una where the BJP got a slender lead of 425 votes.
Interestingly, though the BJP lost the Sujanpur Assembly bypoll by 2,440 votes, Anurag managed an impressive lead of 23,853 in the segment. Anurag and his father had campaigned for BJP candidate Rajinder Rana in Sujanpur but animosity between them was no secret. Rana as Congress candidate had defeated Dhumal in the 2017 Assembly bypoll.
