0/4 for third time, Himachal Congress continues its poor show in Lok Sabha elections
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The Newz Radar Network
Defying the party’s comparatively better showing in neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana, the Congress has been trailing in all the four Lok Sabha constituencies in Himachal Pradesh, the counting for which is underway.
In the 2014 and the 2019 Lok Sabha polls too, the BJP had won all the four seats. The voters in Himachal, thus, appear to be clearly siding with Narendra Modi when it comes to central politics and opting for the Congress and the BJP alternatively in the state Assembly.
A senior Himachal Congress leader had on the eve of counting said that the Congress would win at least two seats, probably Mandi and Shimla, while there was close fight in Kangra.
Compared to Himachal, the Congress has been leading in seven of the 13 seats in Punjab and five of the 10 in Haryana. In the hill state of Uttarakhand, the BJP, as in Himachal, appears to be sweeping all the five seats.
Of the four constituencies in Himachal, hot seat Mandi is the most watched out for as BJP candidate and Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut is pitted from here against Congress minister Vikramaditya Singh.
Kangana has been maintaining a comfortable lead — 71,833 votes at 1.20 pm. Against 4,90,147 votes to Kangana, Vikramaditya has so far been able to manage only 4,18,314.
In Shimla (SC) constituency, BJP’s Suresh Kumar Kashyap (4,97,905 votes) had a lead of 85,465 votes against Vinod Sultanpuri (4,09,610) of the Congress. From Kangra, Dr Rajeev Bhardwaj of the BJP was ahead of Congress’s Anand Sharma by 2,37,261 votes. Bhardwaj has so far polled 5,90,943 votes against 3,53,682 by Sharma.
In Hamirpur, Union Minister Anurag Thakur is all set to be elected the MP for the fifth consecutive term. Anurag (5,37,637 votes) was last seen leading by a comfortable margin of 1,62,916 votes against Satpal Raizada (3,74,721) of the Congress.
With the fate of 37 candidates at stake in the four Lok Sabha seats and 25 candidates in the six assembly seats, the electoral arena in Himachal Pradesh is witnessing a direct showdown between Congress and BJP. The exit poll predictions had previously indicated a clean sweep for BJP in all four Lok Sabha seats, a trend that seems to be manifesting in the ongoing counting process.
