4/4: PM’s charisma works in Himachal

Pratibha Chauhan

Shimla, June 4

Believing in the motto of “ek vote PM ke liye, ex CM ke liye”, the electorate of Himachal today gave a spilt verdict as the BJP won all four Lok Sabha seats in the state, while the Congress bagged four of the six Assembly bypolls held simultaneous.

The Lok Sabha results are an affirmation of Modi’s charisma working yet again in favour of the saffron party in Himachal, which the PM refers to as his second home. Riding high on the Modi wave, Union Minister Anurag Thakur (Hamirpur), actress Kangana Ranaut (Mandi), Suresh Kashyap (Shimla-SC) and Rajiv Bhardwaj (Kangra) won albeit with reduced margins, less than half of the mammoth margins of 2019.

The Congress seems to have been wiped off in the parliamentary elections as it managed to get a lead in only seven of the 68 Assembly segments — Kinnaur, Lahaul-Spiti, Rampur, Rohru, Jubbal-Kotkhai, Anni and Harloi. Even CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu could not stop the Modi magic from working wonders on his home turf of Nadaun, where the BJP managed a lead of 2,143 votes.

While the BJP rejoiced in its Lok Sabha victory, making a clean sweep by winning all four seats, the disappointment of being able to win only two (Dharamsala and Barsar) of the six Assembly bypolls has overshadowed the jubilation of the parliamentary win.

Although the BJP won all seats like in 2019 and 2014, the win this time is hardly impressive considering that the victory margins have been reduced to almost half over the last parliamentary poll. Congress candidates Ranjit Rana (Sujanpur), Vivek Sharma (Kutlehar), Rakesh Kalia (Gagret) and Anuradha Rana (Lahaul-Spiti) won the bypolls, while from the BJP, Sudhir Sharma (Dharamsala) and ID Lakhanpal (Barsar) emerged victorious.

However, the Assembly bypoll results are a setback for the BJP, which had fielded all six Congress MLAs disqualified from the Assembly. The BJP move to give the ticket to all six Congress turncoats seems to have cost the party dear as only Sudhir Sharma (Dharamsala) and ID Lakhanpal (Barsar) managed to register victory due to their own political stature.

The BJP’s dedicated party cadres were demoralised over the decision of the high command to impose the six Congress turncoats on them. Though the BJP managed to placate and take senior BJP leaders along in the campaign, the electorate seems to have rejected party-hoppers in at least four Assembly segments.