BJP faces difficulty from rebels, Congress to retain Himachal CM's home turf

These 10 seats are crucial for the BJP as they have helped the BJP’s win in the 2017 assembly elections

In her rally at chief minister Jairam Thakur’s home turf of Mandi, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra announced that her party will create 5 lakh jobs and set aside Rs 680 crore for a start-up fund.

“They have 68,000 jobs but they are not giving it to anyone,” Vadra said. This is Vadra’s second rally after Solan, and she has taken the fight to the chief minister’s turf.

Mandi district is wedged right between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress’s fight for power. The district has 10 assembly segments — Mandi, Seraj, Balh, Sundernagar, Dharampur, Darang, Karsog, Sundernagar, Nachan, and Sarkaghat. Thakur is contesting from his traditional Seraj constituency.

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These 10 seats are crucial for the BJP as they have helped the BJP win in the 2017 assembly elections. The party had retained nine of the seats, and Congress got none. But in the 2019 Lok Sabha by-elections, Pratibha Singh, the wife of former chief minister Virbhadra Singh won. PM Modi is scheduled to hold a rally at the Sundernagar seat which lies 30 kms from Mandi on November 5.

But a closer look at the electoral contests points at some tight fights. In the Mandi seat, considered a traditional stronghold of Congress veteran Sukh Ram, who passed away in May this year at the age of 92, the BJP has fielded his son Anil Sharma, who will have to contend with a party rebel Praveen Sharma. Anil had left the Congress last term but did not campaign for the BJP in the 2019 by-elections in Mandi.

Both of the BJP’s candidates are upper caste contestants in a seat where their population is over 44 per cent. The Congress, on the other hand, is fielding Champa Thakur from the seat, daughter of party veteran Kaul Singh Thakur. Rajputs account for about 30 per cent of the seat’s population.

Thakur will have to fend off rebellion in as many as three seats in the district. In the Darrang seat, the Congress has fielded Kaul Singh Thakur. The BJP on the other hand has denied a ticket to sitting MLA Jawahar Thakur and fielded Poonam Thakur instead. In the Karsog seat, a reserved constituency, the BJP denied a ticket to sitting MLA Hira Lal and gave it to Deepraj Kapoor. The Congress has fielded Mahesh Raj. And, the BJP will also have to face rebellion from former minister Roop Singh's son Abhishek Thakur from the Sundernagar seat.

A BJP leader, who did not wish to be named, said that the Balh seat could also prove to be difficult for the party. “There was a plan to build an International Airport in the seat. Despite stiff opposition from locals, land was acquired but work has not started there as yet,” said the leader.