Lotus bloom in Himachal as BJP wins all 4 LS seats

Repeating its 2019 performance in the parliamentary polls, the BJP Tuesday won all four Lok Sabha seats of Himachal Pradesh.

The BJP’s Kangna Ranaut, who made her debut in the electoral politics, won Mandi parliamentary seat with a margin of 74,755 votes, defeating state PWD minister and sitting MLA from Shimla (Rural) Vikramaditya Singh.

Interestingly, Kangna took the lead from round number 1 which started with the  vote count in Rampur (SC) Assembly, which is considered the bastion of royal family of Rampur Bushahar. Kangna bagged 5,37,022 votes while Vikramaditya got 4,62,267 votes. In 2019, the Mandi seat was won by BJP candidate Ram Swaroop Sharma, who died in 2021, leading to bypoll which was won by Pratibha Singh, mother of Vikramaditya Singh and wife of six-time chief minister Virbhadra Singh, with a margin of 8,766 votes.

Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur won Hamirpur parliamentary seat for a consecutive fifth time with a margin of 1,82,357 votes. He secured 6,07,068 votes which were 75,244 votes less than last time. In 2019, he had received 6,82,292 votes. Congress candidate Satpal Raizada, who fought against Anurag Thakur, got 4,24,711 votes.

Former Union minister and four-time Rajya Sabha member Anand Sharma lost to the BJP’s Dr Rajeev Bhardwaj by a margin of 2,51,895 from Kangra parliamentary seat. Dr Bhardwaj received 6,32,793 votes while Sharma got 3,80,898 votes.

Congress candidate Vinod Sultanpuri from Shimla (SC) lost to the BJP’s Suresh Kumar Kashyap by 90,548 votes. Vinod Sultanpuri is a sitting MLA from Kasauli Assembly seat. He is the son of six-time MP from Shimla (SC) K D Sultanpuri.

State BJP president Dr Rajeev Bindal congratulated all the winning candidates. He said,