BJP wins Kangra 4th time on trot

Lalit Mohan

Dharamsala, June 4

The BJP won the Kangra seat consecutively for the fourth time in the Lok Sabha elections, the results of which were declared today. BJP candidate Rajiv Bhardwaj defeated former Union Minister and Congress candidate Anand Sharma by an impressive margin of 2,51,964 votes. The BJP had won the Kangra seat consecutively in 2009, 2014, 2019 and now.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BJP candidate Kishan Kapoor had defeated Congress candidate Pawan Kajal by a record margin of 4.77 lakh votes. However, this time, the winning margin reduced to 2,51,964 votes.

The Congress failed to put up even a decent fight though it has 12 sitting MLAs in the Kangra parliamentary constituency. The Congress trailed in all 17 Assembly constituencies in the parliamentary segment, including 12 constituencies represented by its MLAs.

The Congress had fielded former Union Minister Anand Sharma, who fought a direct election after about four decades this time.

The BJP candidate was contesting his first election. He had remained the Chairman of Kangra Central Cooperative Bank during the last BJP government in Himachal from 2017 to 2022. The Congress had termed Bhardwaj a greenhorn and light weight candidate as compared to Anand Sharma.