Himachal bypolls another prestige battle for Sukhu, Anurag as 2 seats fall in Hamirpur parliamentary constituency

With two of the three Himachal Pradesh Assembly seats where byelections are due on July 10 falling in Hamirpur parliamentary constituency, it’s again a prestige battle for local stalwarts Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu of the Congress and Anurag Thakur of the BJP.

Sukhu, the Himachal Chief Minister, is an MLA from Nadaun seat in Hamirpur district while Anurag, two-time former Union Minister, is the Hamirpur MP who has won consecutively for five terms. In the June 1 byelections to six Assembly seats, four constituencies fell in Hamirpur parliamentary constituency. The Congress candidates won in Sujanpur, Kutlehar and Gagret while the Barsar seat went to the BJP.

The BJP’s defeat in the three seats is said to be one of the primary reasons for Anurag losing his ministry in the Narendra Modi government at the Centre. It will be a do-or-die battle for Anurag as the BJP’s performance would decide the sitting MP’s political future too.

As BJP president JP Nadda has found a place in the Modi government on Himachal quota, there are speculations of Anurag getting some big organisational role, which could even be the presidentship of the saffron party and a prominent place in the Himachal unit. Anurag’s father Prem Kumar Dhumal is a two-term former Himachal Chief Minister.

For Chief Minister Sukhu, the upcoming byelections are an opportunity to silence his detractors within the Congress who widely blamed him for the recent threat facing the government when six party MLAs rebelled and joined the BJP.

The defeat in the Barsar bypoll, situated in Sukhu’s home district of Hamirpur, had also cast a shadow on the Chief Minister’s political standing.

The July 10 bypolls have been necessitated after the resignation of Independent MLAs Hoshyar Singh Chambyal from Dehra, Ashish Sharma from Hamirpur and Krishna Lal Thakur from Nalagarh. The trio had resigned to get re-elected on the BJP ticket