Una/Hamirpur (HP), May 24 (UNI) Four-time MP and Union Minister Anurag Thakur of the BJP will take on first-time Congress MLA Sat Pal Raizada for the battle over Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat, where a dozen candidates are in the fray.
Other than the two, there is also Hemraj of Bahujan Samaj Party, and Arun Ankesh Syal of Ekam Sanatan Bharat Dal, Subedar Major Kulwant Singh Patial of Bharatiya Jawan Kisan Party, Jagdeep Kumar of Rashtriya Devbhoomi Party, Sumit Rana of All India Family Party, besides Garib Das Katoch, Gopi Chand Atri, Nand Lal, Ramesh Chand Sarathi and Surendra Kumar Gautam who are all fighting as Independent candidates.
In the last Lok Sabha elections, Thakur won the seat against Ram Lal Thakur of the Congress by a margin of 3,99,572 votes.
It will be the fifth time that Anurag Thakur is contesting the election from the Hamirpur seat.
He is the elder son of former Chief Minister PK Dhumal and the elder brother of Arun Dhumal, the chairman of the IPL (Indian Premier League).
There were 11 candidates in the field in the 2019 elections.
The Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat consists of seventeen assembly seats spread over the districts of Hamirpur, Una, Bilaspur, and parts of Mandi and Kangra.
In the last election, the BJP secured the lead in all seventeen Vidhan Sabha seats. However, later on in the Vidhan Sabha elections, the BJP fared badly and lost all five seats in Hamirpur, three in Una, and one in Bilaspur, and that is why the BJP is trying its best to win this Lok Sabha seat at all cost.
Since BJP chief JP Nadda also belongs to Bilaspur district, which is part of Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat, this is a prestige battle for the BJP.
Thakur proxility to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, besides JP Nadda, has given much advantage to his election campaign.
The Union Minister for I&B, Youth and Sports has been moving in the constituency for the last three months on a regular basis and appealing to the people to vote for him and the party that has made India strong under the leadership of Narendra Modi.
The presence of lakhs of ex-servicemen voters, their families, and female voters may tilt the balance in favour of that party which will be able to lure them. The BJP claims that whatever they have done for these communities is laudable, and people were supposed to vote for them and elect Anurag Thakur with a massive mandate from Hamirpur.
On the other hand, the Congress party has been campaigning on the plank that despite being a union minister, Anurag Thakur has not brought about any development in the area in the past four terms, that is 20 years.
Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister SS Sukhu, who belongs to the Nadaun assembly segment of Hamirpur, has been spearheading the campaign of the Congress along with Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri, who belongs to the Haroli area of Una district.
Both leaders claim that the atmosphere is in favour of the Congress, and the party candidate, Sat Pal Razada, who is a newcomer to the people of Hamirpur and Bilaspur, will be able to win.
With just one week left for the polls, leaders of both Congress and BJP are set to hit the campaign trails with vigour.
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