Congress’s Anand Sharma, BJP’s Rajiv Bhardwaj locked in their first LS contest from Kangra

Lalit Mohan

Dharamsala, May 8

The BJP is banking on the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha election to the Kangra constituency that comprises 17 Assembly segments located in Kangra and Chamba districts. The Congress is relying on its 12 MLAs in the Lok Sabha constituency to ensure the victory of its candidate. The BJP has fielded Rajiv Bhardwaj, a relative of former Chief Minister Shanta Kumar, while the Congress has given ticket to former Union Commerce Minister Anand Sharma. Both Bhardwaj and Sharma are fighting their first Lok Sabha elections.

Sharma will be fighting elections directly after about four decades. He had contested the Assembly elections from Shimla in 1982 and lost to BJP candidate Daulat Ram Chauhan by a slender margin of 200 votes. Sharma had challenged the election result in the Himachal High Court, which set aside the poll. However, Sharma did not fight the Assembly elections again as he was nominated to the Rajya Sabha by then. He remained a Rajya Sabha MP many times and also Union Minister.

Bhardwaj has served on various positions in the BJP organisation for the past about four decades. He remained Chairman of Kangra Central Cooperative Bank (KCCB) during the previous BJP government from 2017 to 2022.

The statistics of the Kangra parliamentary elections reveal that the Congress had dominated the constituency till 1980s. Kanwar Durga Chand of the Janata Dal was the first MP from another party to win the Kangra seat in 1977. However, in the past three decades since 1990s, the BJP has dominated the Kangra seat, winning six out of eight elections. The BJP has won the Kangra parliamentary seat for three terms consecutively in 2009, 2014 and 2019.

BJP candidate Kishan Kapoor had won the Kangra seat in the 2019 parliamentary poll by a margin of 4.77 lakh votes; he secured 72 per cent votes.

The Congress, which has fielded heavy weight candidate Anand Sharma on the seat this time, in relying on its 12 MLAs in the parliamentary constituency to help the party win the elections. The Congress has 10 MLAs in Kangra district and two in Chamba district. The BJP has five MLAs in the Kangra parliamentary constituency — three in Kangra district and two in Chamba district.

Sources said that Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu had directed all 12 Congress MLAs in the Kangra constituency to ensure that the party gets a lead in its their Assembly segments. However, it will be a Herculean task for the Congress to overcome the 4.77 lakh lead that the BJP got in the constituency in the 2019 elections.