BJP has declared tickets for all 68 candidates for the Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections. In the second list released on Thursday, Maheshwar Singh from Kullu, Maya Sharma from Barsar, Prof. Ramkumar from Haroli, and Kaul Negi declared from Rampur. Ramesh Dhawala would contest from Dehra and Ravinder Singh Ravi, a former minister would contest from Jwalamukhi. This time the assembly constituencies of Dhawala and Ravinder Ravi have been changed. Jwalamukhi has been the traditional constituency of Ramesh Dhawala and Ravindra Ravi was comfortable in Dehra. This second list of candidates created a ruckus in relation to many contesting candidates.
Bhartiya Janta Party Mandal, Dharamshala on Thursday witnessed an En-masse resignation of over 150 party supporters and workers, upset over the party’s decision to deny ticket of the BJP sitting MLA Vishal Nehria from Dharamshala constituency ahead of Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections.
The BJP Central Election Committee on Wednesday released its first list of 62 candidates for the upcoming Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections.
However, BJP candidate Rakesh Chaudhary on Thursday filed his nomination to contest from the Dharamshala seat in the upcoming Himachal Pradesh Assembly polls.
Jwalamukhi has been the traditional seat of BJP MLA Ramesh Dhawala. Dhawala, who reached the assembly as an independent MLA in 1998, later joined the BJP. He has been close to former Chief Minister Shanta Kumar. During the last five years, Dhawala has been seen in aggression against the working style of his own government. He also had a lot of tension with the organization’s general secretary Pawan Rana. In Jwalamukhi, the BJP has divided into factions anyway.
Pratibha Virbhadra Singh has a house in Rampur. This reserved seat has been a traditional stronghold of the Congress. From here, former IAS officer PS Drake was given ticket in the 2017 assembly elections. Before that, Brij Lal got the ticket in the year 2007. Despite such experiments, the BJP kept losing elections here. This time young Kaul Negi, who came to BJP through ABVP, has been given ticket. Kaul Negi is originally from Kinnaur. Although there was opposition to giving him a ticket from the very beginning, but the BJP has done a new experiment by reposing faith in him.
Dehra: Traditional seat of Ravindra Ravi
Dehra has been the traditional seat of Ravinder Singh Ravi, who was a minister in the Dhumal government. Ravindra Ravi contested the election from Dehra after the Thural assembly constituency was abolished during re-delimitation in 2012. After this, he continued to contest elections from Dehra until 2017. Independent MLA Hoshiyar Singh defeated him in the last assembly elections.
Former MLA Baldev Sharma’s wife Maya Sharma would contest from Barsar to woo women voters here. Baldev Sharma was the candidate, but in the assembly elec-tions both the times in 2012 and 2017, he was defeated by the sitting Congress MLA Indradutt Lakhanpal. This time by giving ticket to Baldev Sharma’s wife Maya Sharma, BJP has set a new board and has also targeted women voters here.
After a long discussion, the BJP decided to place Prof Ramkumar in the Opposition to Mukesh Agnihotri of Congress, though Prof. Ramkumar has fought elections in 2012 and 2017 against Agnihotri and lost both times. In the year 2007, the name of this seat was Santokhgarh and then Mukesh Agnihotri became MLA from here for the first time. The BJP candidate at that time was Jagroop Singh.
In 2017, Maheshwar Singh lost the election to Congress candidate Sunder Singh Thakur. Maheshwar Singh became MLA from his new party Hilopa in the year 2012. Maheshwar Singh’s son Hiteshwar Singh was also asking for a ticket for himself from Banjar.
