Constituency Watch Sujanpur: Rajinder Rana wants to keep his winning ways

Dinesh Kanwar

Hamirpur, May 9

Rajinder Rana, BJP candidate from Sujanpur Assembly constituency, has won three of four Assembly elections in Sujanpur since 2012. He won two elections as a Congress candidate and one as an Independent candidate. This time he is contesting on BJP election symbol.

The constituency was represented by Rajinder Rana thrice while Narender Thakur represented the constituency once.

The first election in the constituency was won by Rajinder Rana as an Independent candidate when he defeated Congress candidate Anita Verma by margin of 14,166 votes while BJP candidate Urmil Thakur finished at third position. This was biggest ever victory in the constituency as Rana scored 24,674 votes, Anita Verma got 10,508 votes while Urmil Thakur polled 8,853 votes. Rana was seeking BJP ticket from Sujanpur. He was denied ticket and he contested as a BJP rebel. This incident lead to a rift between Rajinder Rana and camp of former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal.

After winning the Assembly election as an Independent, Rana joined the Virbhadra camp. He resigned to contest the Lok Sabha election in 2014 as a Congress candidate. The seat that fell vacant due to his resignation was won by BJP candidate Narender Thakur in the 2014 Assembly byelection. He defeated Anita Rana with margin of 352 votes. Rana lost the Lok Sabha election as Congress candidate and Anurag Thakur of the BJP emerged winner.

In Assembly 2017 Assembly election, Congress fielded Rana against BJP CM stalwart Prem Kumar Dhumal and Rana scored an upset victory defeating Dhumal by margin of 1,919 votes. Rana secured 25,288 votes while Dhumal got 23,369 votes.

In 2022 Assembly election, Rana, fighting as a Congress candidate, defeated BJP’s Ranjit Singh by a slander margin of 399 votes. Rana secured 27,679 votes while Ranjit Singh got 27,280 votes.

Rajinder Rana was expelled from the Assembly in February 2024 along with five other MLAs and the constituency is facing byelection again now.

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