In a major embarrassment to the Congress and Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, the party election in-charge of Hamirpur parliamentary constituency, Narendra Thakur, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday in the presence of former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal and other senior leaders along with Virendra Thakur, son of a former Congress MLA and Vikram Thakur, block Congress general secretary.
Narendra Thakur, son of BJP stalwart Jagdev Chand, joined the Congress a few years ago alleging a let-down by the Dhumal family. Mr. Virbhadra Singh used to call him a ‘big catch’ and a great discomfiture to the BJP. Mr. Thakur had fought as the Congress candidate for the Lok Sabha as well as the Vidhan Sabha elections but had lost in both.
This time, Mr. Virbhadra Singh has given the party ticket from Hamirpur parliamentary seat to a former Dhumal protégé Rajinder Rana as a Congress candidate against Dhumal’s cricketer son and BJYM president Anurag Thakur. His candidature was opposed by a number of Congressmen in the area including the State PCC president Sukhwinder Singh. Even during the “chaupal meeting’ of Congress office bearers in Dharamsala last week, the issue was raised before the Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi. The Congressmen were reportedly snubbed by Mr. Singh for questioning his decision before the AICC leader.
The allegations by the Congress cadres for not preparing its own party’s leadership and instead giving ticket to the BJP left-outs is being seen as a repeated reason for the easy victory of Dhumal family on the Hamirpur seat. The Congress strategy of weaning away a BJP leader and pitting him against Anurag Thakur would again cost them dear, BJP spokesman Ganesh Dutt told The Hindu .
The Aam Aadmi Party has fielded Kamal Kanta Batra, mother of the 1999 Kargil war hero Capt. Vikram Batra, from Hamirpur, a constituency home to a large number of military personnel and ex-servicemen. The Congress has won the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat only once in the past 25 years.
