With Himachal Pradesh getting ready for byelections to six Assembly constituencies and simultaneous Parliamentary polls on June 1, the stage is set for a direct fight between the ruling Congress and the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP). On May 6, the Congress announced its candidates for two more bypoll seats — Lahaul-Spiti and Barsar.
Anuradha Rana, a district council (Zila Parishad) chairperson, will contest from the Lahaul-Spiti seat and Subash Chand from Barsar constituency. Ms. Rana has been pitted against the BJP’s Ravi Thakur, while Mr. Chand will take on Inder Dutt Lakhanpal of the BJP.
The Congress has, so far, declared candidates for five of the six Assembly seats in Himachal Pradesh facing bypolls; it is yet to name a candidate for the Dharamshala seat where the BJP has fielded Sudhir Sharma, one of the Congress turncoats.
Earlier this year, the Congress-ruled State of Himachal Pradesh saw political turbulence when cracks in the party’s State unit came to the fore during the Rajya Sabha election. It resulted in the defeat of Abhishek Manu Singhvi — the official Congress candidate — due to cross-voting by six MLAs of the ruling party. The byelections for six Assembly constituencies are being held after the six seats fell vacant following the disqualification of the then legislators from the State Legislative Assembly for defying the party whip.
Later, all the six Congress rebels joined the BJP and are now contesting as BJP candidates in the bypolls. They were all elected as Congress MLAs in the 2022 Assembly election.
Among other candidates, the Congress has announced Captian Ranjit Singh from the Sujanpur seat, Rakesh Kalia from Gagret, and Vivek Sharma from the Kutlehar Assembly constituency.
