Himachal Pradesh is going to bypolls later this week and all eyes are on two of three seats – Dehra and Hamirpur. The third seat is Nalagarh. Out of the Modi cabinet, Thakur is utilising his time to strengthen the BJP in the state with a focus on two assembly seats in his constituency. Thakur is an MP from Hamirpur. While Dehra and Hamirpur legislative seats are part of the Hamirpur Lok Sabha constituency, Nalagarh is part of the Shimla Lok Sabha constituency.
Thakur has already addressed dozens of poll meetings and will be in the state till this evening – the end of the campaigning. The voting will take place on July 10 and the counting of votes will be taken up on July 13.
The bypolls have turned into a prestige battle – both for the Congress and the BJP. While Anurag Thakur is Hamirpur MP, Himachal CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and Deputy CM Mukesh Agnihotri hail from the same Lok Sabha seat. While Sukhu hails from Nadaun, Agnihotri represents the Haroli seat and both of these seats come under the Hamirpur Lok Sabha.
The BJP is upbeat after its performance in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls where it swept the elections winning all four seats in the state. On the other hand, the Congress is looking to win the bypolls to show that people continue to trust the Sukhu government and the Lok Sabha polls were an aberration.
The bypolls are being held following the resignation of three Independent MLAs—K L Sharma, K L Thakur, and Hoshyar Singh Chambyal—who supported BJP nominee Harsh Mahajan in the February Rajya Sabha elections. After joining the BJP, they have been nominated by the party to contest from their respective seats: Sharma from Hamirpur, Thakur from Nalagarh, and Chambyal from Dehra.
While six Congress MLAs had also supported the BJP during the Rajya Sabah polls inviting their disqualification, the six seats went to the bypolls along with the Lok Sabha elections. Of these six seats, the Congress won four as against the BJP’s two.
With this, the current tally of Congress stands at 38 and that of the BJP at 27. If the BJP wins the bypolls, it will portray the victory as a moral defeat of the Sukhu government while a victory for Congress would further consolidate the power in favour of CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.