Race for Congress ticket from Gagret hots up after BJP fields Chaitanya Sharma

Rajesh Sharma

Una, March 26

The race for ticket among Congress leaders for the Gagret Assembly seat in Una district has intensified after the BJP fielded disqualified MLA Chaitanya Sharma for the forthcoming byelection. Chaitnaya along with five other disqualified Congress MLAs had joined the BJP in New Delhi recently.

Former MLAs in reckoning

• Former minister Kuldip Kumar and former Gagret MLA Rakesh Kalia have staked claim to the Gagret ticket. Both have represented the segment in the past
• Kuldip Kumar had won the seat for three consecutive time in 1993, 1998 and 2003
• However, Kuldip’s arch rival BJP’s Balbir Chaudhary wrested the Gagret seat from him in the 2007 elections
• Rakesh Kalia, who was the sitting Chintpurni MLA from 2007 to 2012, contested the 2012 elections from Gagret and won by a margin of 4,897 votes against Sushil Kalia
• In the 2017 Assembly elections, the BJP fielded Rajesh Thakur, who defeated Rakesh Kalia by over 15,000 votes
• Former MLA Rakesh Kalia, who had joined the BJP in 2022, quit the party when Congress rebel Chaitnaya Sharma joined the BJP last week

Former minister Kuldip Kumar and former Gagret MLA Rakesh Kalia have staked claim to the Gagret ticket. Both have represented the segment in the past.

Gagret, one of the five Assembly segments in Una district, was reserved for Scheduled Castes candidate till the 2012 elections and Kuldip Kumar had won the seat for three consecutive time in 1993, 1998 and 2003. However, his arch rival BJP’s Balbir Chaudhary wrested the Gagret seat from him in the 2007 elections.

The ‘delimitation’ exercise was conducted in Himachal Pradesh before the 2012 Assembly elections, after which Gagret was notified as an ‘open’ seat while the adjoining constituency of Chintpurni was notified as ‘reserved for SC candidate’. Kuldip Kumar and Balbir Chaudhary switched over from Gagret to Chintpurni during the 2012 elections, leaving the Gagret pitch for Rakesh Kalia of the Congress and Sushil Kalia of the BJP.

Rakesh Kalia, who was the sitting Chintpurni MLA from 2007 to 2012, contested the 2012 elections from Gagret and won by a margin of 4,897 votes against Sushil Kalia. In the 2017 Assembly elections, the BJP fielded Rajesh Thakur, who defeated Rakesh Kalia by over 15,000 votes.

After the 2017 elections, Chaitanya entered the political stage in Gagret. He began with social service ventures, including financial assistance to people in need of health care, education of children and the like. He won the zila parishad seat from Gagret with the biggest ever margin in the history of Himachal Pradesh, leading to staking his claim for the Gagret Assembly ticket from either the BJP or the Congress.

Chaitanya got the Congress nod for the 2022 elections and Rakesh Kalia joined the BJP to campaign in favour of Rajesh Thakur. However, Chaitanya Sharma won the seat, defeating Rajesh Thakur by 12,685 votes and became the youngest MLA in the history of the state.

After Chaitanya joined the BJP on Saturday, Rakesh Kalia resigned from the BJP in the hope of securing a Congress ticket on the segment that he had represented once from 2012 to 2017. Kuldeep Kumar, too, has initiated public meetings in the hope of winning favour with the party high command for the Gagret ticket.

Kalia had been a campmate of Vidya Stokes, while Kuldip Kumar had proximity to the Virbhadra camp and both are expected to play their cards, though the Congress could bank on a new face to counter Chaitanya. How the traditional party cadre behaves in the wake of the BJP fielding Chaitanya from Gagret is yet to be seen.

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