Lok Sabha polls 2019: BJP eyes historic success in Himachal Pradesh once again
Thanks to their emphatic win back in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP currently occupies all the seats in Himachal Pradesh.
Four parliamentary seats will be up for grabs on May 19, 2019, when the seventh and final phase of the Lok Sabha elections will be held in the state of Himachal Pradesh. Hamirpur, Kangra, Mandi, and Shimla are the four constituencies which will see a competition largely between two old political foes - Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress. Thanks to their emphatic win back in the 2014 general elections, the BJP currently occupies all the seats in the state.
Among the 51 lakh eligible voters in the state, 88,127 voters will exercise their franchise in the general elections for the first time ever. According to the state chief electoral officer Devesh Kumar, 48,211 males and 39,889 females comprise the first-time voters. The last date for filing candidate nomination is April 29 and a candidate can withdraw his candidature by May 2. The results will be declared on May 23, 2019.
In another announcement, Devesh Kumar confirmed that out of 7,723 polling stations in the mountain state, 367 have been deemed critical and 950 vulnerable making Himachal Pradesh the state with most inaccessible polling booths in the country. For example, in order to cast a vote in Chamba's Shakti polling booth, polling parties will have to walk 20km.
Incumbents in the state
Hamirpur: This parliamentary seat has long been a pocket borough of the BJP. The saffron party has lost just once, 1996, in Hamirpur ever since rising to power in 1989. The sitting MP from the seat is Anurag Thakur, son of former state CM Prem Kumar Dhumal. Thakur retained the seat in the 2014 general elections after defeating Congress' Rajinder Rana by nearly 10,000 votes.
Kangra: After winning the 2004 elections, Congress' Chander Kumar has failed to win in Kangra in successive general elections. In 2009, he lost to BJP's Rajan Sushant while in 2014, he was outdone by nearly 1.70 lakh votes by the former chief minister of Himachal Pradesh Shanta Kumar, who is the incumbent there.
Mandi: Senior BJP leader Ram Swaroop Sharma is the sitting MP in Mandi. He defeated former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh's wife Pratibha Singh in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Sharma recorded nearly 40,000 more votes than his Congress rival to claim the Mandi seat.
Shimla: This Lok Sabha seat is reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates and the sitting MP here is BJP's Virender Kashyap. The BJP leader retained the Shimla constituency in 2014 after defeating Mohan Lal Brakta of Congress by some 84,000 votes.
Candidates in the fray
Reports suggest that the BJP is keen to renominate all of its sitting MPs in the four parliamentary seats in Himachal Pradesh in upcoming general elections, however, no official announcement has been made yet. The party will announce the final list of contesting candidates soon.
The Congress can field different candidates than the last Lok Sabha elections since many senior leaders were missing during party president Rahul Gandhi's public address in Kangra recently. The party's screening committee will meet in Delhi on March 17 and 18 to discuss the candidates.
Vote share of contesting parties in recent years
Ever since BJP's Shanta Kumar defeated the then two-term Congress chief minister Virbhadra Singh in 1990, the electorate in the mountain state has chosen the BJP and Congress governments on an alternate basis. However, in the general elections, the BJP holds an upper edge as the party has secured two or more seats out of total four on six separate occasions since 1989 while the Congress only managing to match that feat twice during this span.
Back in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP secured 49.6 per cent popular vote compared to the Congress' 45.6 per cent. The total number of votes polled was 26.9 lakh with a voter turnout of 58.6 per cent. The BJP won in three seats while the remaining one was clinched by the Congress.
Later in 2014 general elections, the BJP improved on its 2009 performance and garnered 53.0 per cent popular vote while the Congress suffered further by seeing its vote share go down to 41.1 per cent. Out of a total 48.1 lakh electorate, 30.9 lakh votes were polled. The saffron party had won all the four parliamentary seats.
However, in Assembly elections, the Congress fared finely in 2012 when it won 36 seats out of 68 comfortably forming the government in the state. The Virbhadra Singh-led party got 42.8 per cent vote share while the BJP received 38.4 per cent popular vote. The saffron party won 26 seats.
The BJP stormed to power with a resounding victory in the 2017 Assembly elections after securing a whopping 44 number of seats with 48.8 per cent vote share. The Congress got 41.7 per cent vote share managing to win only 21 seats. Prem Kumar Dhumal was named the chief minister of Himachal Pradesh.