General Elections 2014: Will Modi wave prevail in Himachal Pradesh?

Hemant Abhishek

Three of the four Lok Sabha seats in the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh are currently with the Bharatiya Janata Party. And it has decided to field two of its incumbents—Virender Kashyap from Shimla (SC) and Anurag Thakur from Hamirpur seats. BJP has decided to field veteran party leader Shanta Kumar from the Kangra Lok Sabha seat. The incumbent MP Dr Rajan Sushant on finding himself ticketless has veered over to the Aam Aadmi Party camp and will be challenging Kumar alongwith Congress` Chander Kumar. The Congress has decided to field state chief minister Virbhadra Singh`s wife Pratibha Singh from Mandi. The BJP had a tough time finding a suitable candidate from the seat proven from the fact that the state party committee even offered the seat to its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. But the party has finally entrusted Ram Swaroop Sharma with the responsibility to wrest the seat from Mrs Singh. CPI-M has given its ticket to Kushal Bhardwaj from the seat. In the fray against sitting Shimla MP Virender Kashyap (BJP) are Congress` Mohan Lal Bragta and CPI-M`s Jagat Ram. Historically, the Hamirpur seat has been a bane for the Congress. It has only the seat on one occasion in the past 25 years. And this time around too it found it difficult to put up a strong opponent against Anurag Thakur, who also happens to be the son of former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal. But the party managed to prop a former Dhumal loyalist, Rajinder Rana, as the Congress candidate from the seat. Keeping in mind that the seat is dominated by defence personnel and ex-servicemen, the AAP may field Kamal Kanta Batra, mother of 1999 Kargil war hero Captain Vikram Batra from Hamirpur. The former Himachal chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal has been in the eye of the storm ever since his name surfaced in the alleged phone tapping in the state. The issue caught public eye hours before Congress` Vibhadra Singh took oath as the CM for a record sixth term in December 2012. Singh has sped up investigation in the case right before the Lok Sabha polls and hopes to gain some leverage out of it. He recently claimed that Rahul Gandhi`s election rally in Dharamshala was bigger than Narendra Modi`s rally in Sujanpur rally. And claimed that the crowd for BJP prime-ministerial candidate had been `outsourced` from nearby states like Punjab, Haryana and Jammu. Another factor that could prove to be the game-changer is the UPA government`s ascent to "one rank, one pension" for military personnel. The Congress party has claimed that a large number of defence personnel who hail from Himachal will benefit from it. Bu the Himachal Pradesh BJP countered it by saying that the UPA government took the decision in a tearing haste after Modi announced at his Sujanpur rally that the NDA government would accept the ex-servicemen`s demand after the Lok Sabha polls. As the Sujanpur assembly seat fell vacant following the resignation of Independent MLA Rajinder Rana, who is now the Congress candidate from the Hamirpur Lok Sabha constituency, the by-election for this seat will be held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha election in the state on May 7. The counting of votes for this seat will be held May 16, the day when counting for the Lok Sabha seats is to be held. The state goes to polls on May 7.