Jolt to Congress in Mandi, Vikramaditya loses to Kangana

Dipender Manta

Mandi, June 4

In the high-stakes fight on the Mandi parliamentary seat, BJP candidate Kangana Ranaut defeated Congress candidate Vikramaditya Singh by a margin of 74,755 votes today.

It was Kangana’s first election ever and she humbled the sitting Public Works Department (PWD) Minister, who also contested the Lok Sabha elections for the first time. In the 2021 byelection, Vikramaditya’s mother and state Congress president Pratibha Singh had won the Mandi Lok Sabha seat for the third time. Pratibha’s husband and six-term former Chief Minister, late Virbhadra Singh, had also been MP from the Mandi seat thrice.

As soon as the Election Commission declared Kangana winner from the Mandi seat, jubilant BJP workers started raising slogans in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Leader of the Opposition Jai Ram Thakur and her. They burst firecrackers at Seri Manch, where a huge crowd had gathered to welcome Kangana and Jai Ram. Both leaders addressed the gathering and later reached the counting centre at the Sanskriti Sadan to listen to the final election results.