Is Anurag Thakur’s transition to the BJP in Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh, easier now that Rajinder Rana is a member?

Anurag Thakur, a union minister and current BJP MP from Himachal Pradesh, is vying for the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat for a record-breaking fifth time. The Congress has not yet declared a candidate for the parliamentary seat.

His goal this time is to exceed the record triumph of 2019 by a margin of almost 4 lakh votes, highlighting the people’s sustained support for the BJP in the hill state.

Prem Kumar Dhumal, the father of Anurag Thakur and the two-time chief minister of Himachal Pradesh, was elected as an MP three times from Hamirpur, the BJP’s stronghold.

This Lok Sabha seat, which consists of 17 assembly seats, has been held by the BJP since Suresh Chandel was elected as the MP in 1998. He carried on till 2004.

Dhumal was elected to the Hamirpur legislature in 2007 but subsequently stepped down to assume the position of Chief Minister. Due to this, a bypoll was required, and Anurag Thakur has served as the MP since 2008. He won his first election when he was 34 years old.

According to ground reports, the father-son duo’s home district of Hamirpur, where three of the five Assembly seats were previously won by the state-ruling Congress in the December 2022 elections, will not be difficult for the Union Minister to hold onto.

Once the Dhumal family’s bastion, the seat was won by an Independent, while the Congress won four of the district’s five Assembly members.

Ahead of the election, Rajinder Rana, a former Congress member from Sujanpur, where Anurag Thakur’s father Dhumal formerly ran for office, is running as the BJP’s candidate for the Assembly by-election.

Similarly, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, a Congress member from Badsar who defected, is running as the BJP candidate in the Assembly by-poll.

Six MLAs, including Rana and Lakhanpal, were disciplined by the Congress for their cross-voting after the BJP secured the state’s lone Rajya Sabha seat.

Additionally, Hamirpur-based independent lawmaker Ashish Sharma has endorsed the BJP for the Rajya Sabha election.

A political expert told IANS on Wednesday, “The Congress is facing a challenge to win the BJP’s bastion, despite the Chief Minister, for the first time in history, belongs to Hamirpur district.”

The literacy rate in the parliamentary constituency is very high. All five of the Una district’s segments, five from Hamirpur, four from Bilaspur, two from Kangra, and one Assembly section from Mandi district make up its seventeen members.

Anurag Thakur, riding high on the Narendra Modi factor, thinks that when “you work and deliver there is no question of anti-incumbency, rather there is pro-incumbency”.

In 2019, the Congress, which had last won the Hamirpur seat in 1996, matched Anurag Thakur against Ram Lal Thakur, the lawmaker who was in office at the time. With a record margin of around four lakh votes and a 69% vote share, the latter was elected.

Compared to the other three Lok Sabha constituencies—Shimla (reserved), Kangra, and Mandi—Hamirpur has seen more vigorous campaigning in each of the state’s bipolar parliamentary elections between the Congress and the BJP.

Anurag Thakur’s father, former Chief Minister Dhumal, constantly plays a significant part in his political pitch by investing all of his time and effort into making sure his son wins. He has an incredible rapport and has served the Hamirpur parliamentary seat three times.

BJP sources told IANS that even the Union Minister had invested time and effort in his constituency before the poll declaration, whenever he had time from his hectic schedule in Delhi.

He is relentlessly canvassing the nation to win support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third term.

Returning to his “home pitch”, the former BCCI chief’s passion for the game saw him build state-of-the-art facilities in the tiny hill state, which helped India defeat England in the series’ fifth game at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) stadium in Dharamsala on March 9 by an innings and 64 runs.

It’s interesting to note that J.P. Nadda, the national president of the BJP, is a member of the Hamirpur parliamentary constituency and has three times represented the Bilaspur (Sadar) assembly seat. The three seats in Bilaspur were won by the BJP in the December 2022 Assembly elections.

The only positive development for the state governing party has been the recent joining of councillor Raj Kumar and head of the BJP-backed Hamirpur Municipal Committee, Manoj Minhas, by the Congress. This happened a few days after Rakesh Thakur, the previous president of the BJP in the Sujanpur block, joined the Congress.

The BJP had taken home all four of the parliamentary seats in the 2019 general elections. The Congress took the Mandi seat later in the byelection.

There are several rumors that the daughter of Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri, Aastha, from Hamirpur, may be fielded by the Congress. It will be her first election campaign.

Agnihotri is a member of Una, which is a parliamentary seat in Hamirpur.

In the Hamirpur parliamentary constituency, the Nadaun and Haroli assembly seats are represented by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Sukhu and his deputy, Agnihotri.

Anurag Thakur has an amazing 85% attendance rate, participating in 72 debates and raising an astounding total of 612 relevant questions in the Parliament, according to a post on his website. Those are all the top among the 15th Lok Sabha’s youthful members.

Anurag Thakur’s attendance rate in the 16th Lok Sabha has risen to 92%. He has also participated in 46 debates and has answered 287 questions in total.

The current Union Minister is credited for establishing new trains, expanding rail connections to Himachal, constructing prestigious technical schools and a central university, and extending and maintaining the state’s national highway system.

On June 1, votes will be cast for each of the four Lok Sabha seats in Himachal Pradesh. As with the rest of the nation, the results will be announced on June 4.