BJP has not yet spoken with Mandi’s rebels and dissidents

To turn them around and limit potential harm, the BJP has not yet reached out to party dissidents in the Mandi parliamentary seat who ran as independent candidates in the 2022 Assembly elections after being refused a ticket. In order to determine their future strategy for the approaching Lok Sabha elections, the rebels recently convened on a single platform. The state BJP leadership, they bemoaned, was courting Congress figures while ignoring individuals who had dedicated their whole lives to the party.

Two party dissidents and six BJP rebels have expressed dissatisfaction with the party’s disregard for them. Attending the meeting generated political heat from disgruntled leaders like former Sarkaghat MLA Col Inder Singh and MLA Jawahar Thakur, as well as rebels like former Anni MLA Kishori Lal Sagar, former Kinnaur MLA Tejwant Negi, former state BJP general secretary Ram Singh, Abhishek Thakur, the son of former minister Roop Singh Thakur, Praveen Kumar Sharma, and the son of former Mandi MP Maheshwar Singh, Hiteshwar Singh.

After running as independent candidates, the six rebels received 61,146 votes in total. With 31,392 and 30,705 votes, respectively, BJP candidates Jawahar Thakur from Darang and Col. Inder Singh from Sarkaghat have won the 2017 Assembly elections. Both, nevertheless, were not given tickets for the 2022 elections.

After a few politicians voiced their dissatisfaction about being overlooked in the Mandi ticket distribution process and Bollywood star Kangana Ranaut’s fielding, then chief minister Jai Ram Thakur began the process of mitigating the damage. The Leader of the Opposition recently visited the Kullu house of former MP Maheshwar Singh. On Saturday, he also held a meeting with Brig Khushal Thakur (retd), the BJP candidate in the 2021 Lok Sabha byelection. The BJP’s position on the rebels remained unclear.

Pratibha Singh, the Congress candidate, had defeated Brig Khushal Thakur by a margin of 7,490 votes. Recently, a few former Servicemen’s League leaders voiced their displeasure with the party’s choice. The Kargil war veteran did, however, declare his complete support for the party’s choice to field Kangana. Maheshwar Singh had also voiced his dissatisfaction with the disregard for his ticket demand. Maheshwar had refrained from attending the last BJP rally in Mandi, which was held in favor of Kangana.

Bansi Lal, the Congress candidate, received 14,224 votes, while Paras Ram received 17,355 votes. Only 6,828 votes were cast for Congress candidate Jagdish Chand Sapehia, compared to 29,558 for Jagjiwan Paul.