Constituency Watch Barsar: Congress’s Subhash Dhatwalia in direct fight with turncoat Inder Dutt Lakhanpal

Dinesh Kanwar

Hamirpur, May 28

The Barsar Assembly constituency is going to witness a direct fight between the Congress and the BJP this time. There is a direct contest between Congress candidate Subhash Chand Dhatwalia and BJP candidate Inder Dutt Lakhanpal. Independent candidate Vishal Sharma may secure some votes but is not in a position to affect the election results in favour of any candidate.

There are total 88,439 voters (44,388 male and 44,050 female and one transgender) in the constituency that will face byelection along with the Lok Sabha elections. There are 112 polling stations in the constituency.

KEY STATS

88,439 Total voters

44,388 Male 

44,050 Female

Transgender: 1

In the 2022 Assembly elections, Lakhanpal had won the seat as Congress candidate by securing 30,293 votes. He had defeated BJP candidate Maya Sharma, who had secured 16,501 votes, by a margin of over 13,792 votes.

Interestingly, Lakhanpal is now the BJP candidate for the Barsar byelection while the Congress has fielded Dhatwalia, a party loyalist. Dhatwalia is a government contractor and also owns a crusher in Hamirpur district. He had remained a Zila Parishad member, gram panchayat pradhan and a member of the Block Development Committee.

Lakhanpal had won the Barsar seat on Congress ticket for the first time in the 2012 Assembly elections defeating BJP’s Baldev Sharma by a margin of 2,658 votes. He had secured 26,041 votes while Baldev Sharma got 23,383 votes. In the 2017 Assembly elections, Lakhanpal as Congress candidate had secured 25,669 votes and BJP’s Baldev Sharma got 25,240 votes, thus losing by a slender margin of 439 votes.

Lakhanpal again fought the 2022 Assembly elections on the Congress ticket and secured 30,293 votes while Maya Sharma of the BJP got 16,501 votes. Lakhanpal won the elections by a margin of 13,792 votes. The BJP had faced a revolt in 2022 as party leader Sanjeev Sharma, brother of another BJP leader Rakesh Sharma, contested the Assembly elections as an Independent candidate and Maya Sharma lost by a huge margin.

The BJP had fielded Maya Sharma, wife of former MLA Baldev Sharma, a Dhumal Loyalist, in place of her husband against Lakhanpal from Barsar. This resulted in a revolt in the BJP and Maya Sharma lost the elections by a big margin. Rakesh Sharma was a former Chairman of the Labour Welfare Board during the government of Jai Ram Thakur and died before the Assembly elections. Several BJP leaders had suggested Sanjeev Sharma’s candidature for the bypoll to gain sympathy due to Rakesh Sharma’s death but the party fielded Maya Sharma.