The contest in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections is neck and neck between the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and rival Congress.
The hill state which has a tradition of overthrowing the incumbent government after every five years may do the same this year. According to the trends at 1.50 pm, Congress is leading in 38 seats and has won 2, while BJP is ahead in 21 and has registered a victory in four.
Himachal Pradesh has three major regions – Kangra, Mandi, and Shimla and it is the first that decides which party will rule.
Kangra region has the largest number of Assembly seats – 25 – followed by Mandi with 24 and Shimla with 19 seats out of the total 68-member House.
Kangra region houses the districts of Kangra, Chamba, and Una. The Kangra district which has 15 Assembly constituencies and around 13.2 lakh voters is the real ‘kingmaker’ of Himachal Pradesh. The 15 seats in the Kangra district include Fatehpur, Kangra, Jawali, Jawalamukhi, Nagrota, Shahpur, Dharamshala, Palampur, Baijnath, Nurpur, Indora, Jaswan-Pragpur, Jaisinghpur, Sullah and Dehra.
The grand old party is surging in 10 of these constituencies, BJP in four and an Independent is ahead in Dehra as per the current trends.
The importance of Kangra is such that both BJP and Congress campaigned here with all their might.
What were the past election results in the Kangra district? Why is it the ‘kingmaker’ in Himachal Pradesh? How political parties have tried to woo Kangra? Let’s take a closer look.
Past Kangra district results
The parties that have formed governments in the state in the past have all bagged at least nine out of the total 15 Assembly seats in the Kangra district.
As per the election data, since 1993, Kangra has paved the way to Shimla for BJP and Congress, who have come to power in Himachal alternatively, reported Hindustan Times.
In the 2017 state Assembly elections, the BJP won 11 out of the 15 constituencies. The Congress was triumphant on only three seats in the district – Fatehpur, Kangra, and Palampur.
The saffron party which formed the government in 2017 had an eight per cent vote share lead over the grand old party.
In 2012 polls, the Congress had secured 10 constituencies. The BJP had gained nine out of 15 seats in 2007.
Before delimitation, Congress had won 11 seats in Kangra out of 16 at that time. The Kangra district had the 16th seat — Thural segment — which was disbanded and merged with the neighbouring constituencies during the delimitation in 2012.
Significance of Kangra
It is because of Kangra’s significance in electoral politics that Dharamshala is the second capital of Himachal, as per The Tribune report.
In Dharamshala’s Vidhan Sabha complex, the first Assembly session was organised in the winter of 2006, the report said.
Earlier in 1994, six-time Congress chief minister Virbhadra Singh began visiting the district for a two weeks stay in winter with an aim to thaw the distance between people and administration.
Later, (former) BJP chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal had continued the practice, The Tribune reported.
ALSO READ: How votes are counted for the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections
‘Kingmaker’ Kangra
While Mandi and Shimla have mostly made their choices between BJP and Congress respectively, Kangra’s electors have swayed the results with their swing votes.
Kangra region as well as the district has a pocket of voters who reject the incumbent every five years and thus can determine the fate of the political party that will rule Himachal.
Like the rest of Himachal, the Rajput community dominates Kangra.
Citing locals, Hindustan Times reported that the Rajput form around 34 per cent of the population in the Kangra district, OBCs account for 32 per cent and 20 per cent are Brahmins.
The rest 14 per cent majorly belong to the shepherd community — Gaddi — and scheduled caste, the newspaper added.
“In the last 30 years, Kangra has given a clear verdict to a political party. The party which secured Kangra has won at least nine seats and hardly ever Congress and BJP got seven seats each. Data shows both Congress and BJP get a minimum of 40 per cent votes, and the remaining 3-5 per cent are swing votes. That is the reason why Kangra will decide the verdict again,” Harish Thakur, a political science professor at Himachal Pradesh University in Shimla, told Hindustan Times.
He told Times of India there has not been a clear 50-50 division of votes in Kangra, leading to the district deciding the state’s ruling party.
“Both parties have given a significant share of tickets to Rajput and Gaddi leaders. BJP has not given even a single ticket to Brahmin in Kangra, whereas the Congress has given one ticket,” Thakur said, as per Hindustan Times.
How parties tried to woo the kingmaker?
The BJP and AAP organised big rallies in the Kangra district during the campaigning period.
Realising the importance of the district, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP national president JP Nadda held campaigns there.
Modi had said at a rally in Chambi village, “Kangra is the land of Shaktipeeths and his party has the blessing of it”, reported Moneycontrol.
Notably, Kangra is the hometown of Shanta Kumar, BJP’s first chief minister in Himachal.
All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also focused more on the Kangra district.
She hit out at the ruling BJP government over unemployment and also vowed to restore the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) — one of the main issues in the hill state.
Sudhir Sharma, Congress’ nominee from Dharamshala Assembly seat, told Hindustan Times that Agnipath and the OPS were major issues in the Kangra district. “I can see anger among people on a range of issues. But, these two are very dominant as they affect the future of large parts of the population,” he told the newspaper.
Sharma is confident that these issues will help Congress in trouncing the saffron party.
With inputs from agencies
Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,
India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
December 08, 2022 at 02:31PM
No comments:
Post a Comment