Turncoat Sudhir wins Dharamsala ahead of Jaggi

Lalit Mohan

Dharamsala, June 4

Sudhir Sharma, a Congress rebel, won the Dharamsala Assembly bypoll as BJP candidate by an impressive margin of 5,611 votes today. Sudhir got 27,529 votes, while Congress candidate Davinder Jaggi finished second with 21,918 votes. Independent candidate and BJP rebel Rakesh Chaudhary left his mark by bagging 10,637 votes.

The byelection saw a high-voltage campaign with CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu holding over 10 political rallies in the Assembly constituency.

Targeting Sudhir, the CM levelled charges of corruption against him. The CM, during his campaign in Dharamsala, had alleged that Sudhir had acquired 82 properties worth Rs 10 crore in and around Dharamsala in the name of his driver. He had termed Sudhir as head of the group of six Congress MLAs, who had rebelled against the party.

Playing the victim card, Sudhir said he rebelled against CM Sukhu over the latter’s alleged bias against the Dharamsala Assembly constituency and Kangra district. He had also levelled charges of corruption against the CM.

With Sudhir winning by an impressive margin, it seems the issue of bias against the region, seemed to have worked for the BJP. The issue of North Campus of Central University of Himachal Pradesh (CUHP) seemed to have played in favour of Sudhir. Residents of Dharamsala had been agitating against the state government for not releasing Rs 30 crore for transferring forest land to the name of CUHP at Jadrangal. However, the state government remained adamant on not releasing the amount for the purpose.

The BJP also raised the issue of the present government not holding the winter sojourn in Dharamsala, besides the district getting just one ministerial berth in the first year of the Congress government. The second Cabinet minister from Kangra was inducted recently. The present government has the lowest ever representation from Kangra in the state Cabinet since the state’s inception, despite the district giving 10 MLAs to the Congress.

Many Congress leaders were attributing the party’s defeat in the Dharamsala bypoll to selection of Davinder Jaggi as a candidate. Sources said many leaders of the Congress were in favour of giving the party ticket to BJP rebel Rakesh Chaudhary, who had a better prospects of winning, as per the party’s surveys. However, the CM chose loyalty to party over winnability while deciding on Jaggi as the Congress candidate.