Kashyap romps home in Shimla, 2nd time in a row

Subhash Rajta

Shimla, June 4

The BJP won the Shimla parliamentary seat, reserved for the Scheduled Castes, for the fourth time in a row. The BJP’s Suresh Kashyap defeated Congress candidate Vinod Sultanpuri by 99,451 votes to register his second consecutive win on the seat.

The defeat on this particular seat will hurt the Congress as there are five ministers and three CPS in the government from this constituency. Yet, it failed to win the seat.

Kashyap seems to have sailed to victory on the back of the charisma of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as there was significant anti-incumbency against him in all three districts comprising the Shimla seat. From his home constituency Pachhad, Kashyap could get a lead of just over 500 votes, indicating anti-incumbency against him. In Shimla district as well, there was resentment against Kashyap.

Sultanpuri fared even worse than Kashyap in his home segment of Kasauli. Far from getting a lead in Kasauli that he represents as MLA, Sultanpuri actually conceded a lead of 2,360 votes to Kashyap.

The Congress, however, can draw solace from the fact that Kashyap’s victory margin reduced substantially from 3,27, 514 votes in 2019 to a little over 90,000 this time.