Chandigarh: All eyes are on Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi parliamentary constituency as the Congress party on Saturday, April 13 fielded royal scion Vikramaditya Singh to take on fiery Bollywood actor-turned-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nominee Kangana Ranaut.
The constituency has for long been the strong base of Vikramaditya’s family — won multiple times by his late father Virbhadra Singh who served as the chief minister for six terms — and his mother Pratibha Singh is the sitting Congress MP from Mandi as well as the party’s state unit president.
At present, a cabinet minister in the Himachal Pradesh government, Vikramaditya’s entry, poll observers believe, has put the Congress in contention on the Mandi seat, which was in the news ever since the BJP announced Ranaut’s candidature from her home turf last month.
As expected, the fiery poll battle between both the young guns has already raised the profile of the seat.
The flamboyant actor – whose movie career has otherwise been rattled by controversies and several flops in the last few years– has been playing her new role perfectly on the BJP’s poll script. This includes making personal attacks on opposition leaders in her usual no-hold barred election speeches and pitching Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the only choice, pandering into a larger BJP narrative to keep the attention of the voters away from critical issues.
With Vikramaditya in the fray, she has already asserted that her poll battle against him is that of “a commoner versus a privileged and dynast” and targeted him by using words like “Chotta Pappu”.
But Vikramaditya is not mincing words either. He has addressed Ranaut as a “queen” of controversies, digging into her past beef eating habits as well as reminding voters of her complete lack of emotional connection with her home constituency.
The Congress nominee recently asked Ranaut where she was when most part of the Mandi constituency – including Kullu and Manali – was in the grip of floods and cloudbursts. He even chided her by saying that she hopefully goes back ‘pure’ from Dev Bhoomi Himachal to Bollywood after she loses the Mandi election — referring to her beef eating habits, which she otherwise denied.
Responding to Vikramaditya’s comment, Kangana said, “Yeh tumhare baap-dada ki riyasat nahin hai, ke tum mujhe dara, dhamka ke wapis bhej doge (This is not the estate of your father or grandfather that you will threaten me and send me back).”
Vikramaditya belongs to the royal Rajput family of the erstwhile princely state of Bushahr in upper Himachal region.
The hype surrounding Ranaut’s contest was Congress’s own doing too. The use of sexist remarks against her allowed her to use it to galvanise her support base.
She was also seen in many public meetings trying to connect voters through her local dialect.
Election fight evenly placed
While their rivalry will continue to hog the limelight, the political odds, as per poll observers, are evenly placed.
Shimla University’s political science Professor Ramesh Chauhan told The Wire that Mandi as a Lok Sabha constituency is uniquely placed. While half of 17 constituencies come from Mandi district, the remaining half are attached to Kullu, Chamba, Shimla, Kinnaur as well as Lahaul and Spiti districts.
He said politically speaking, Mandi has been the BJP’s bastion for long. Even in the recent assembly polls, Mandi was the only district in the state where BJP performed exceptionally well.
“But the same is not true for BJP in other areas, where Congress and particularly Virbhadra family enjoys considerable support because of their royal lineage as well as late Virabhadra’s popularity, ” Chauhan said.
According to him, the fact that Pratibha Singh won the Mandi parliamentary by-election in November 2021 was because of the huge lead in her family strongholds like Rampur in Shimla district and Kinnaur besides exceptional support in Kullu and Chamba.
“The fate of the constituency would have been different if the BJP had fielded former chief minister Jai Ram Thakur from this seat since Mandi has been his home turf. With Ranaut in the fray and Congress fielding members of Virbhadra family, Congress is very much in the fight here,” he added.
In the last Mandi by-election, internal defection was another reason for the saffron party’s defeat. Even this time several BJP politicians are unhappy over the party’s decision to field Ranaut by ignoring prominent local leaders.
Earlier this month, a group of dissident BJP leaders held a separate meeting to plan their strategy for the Lok Sabha elections. The meeting was called at the behest of the former BJP MLA from Drang, Jawahar Thakur and it was presided over by Colonel Inder Singh, a former BJP MLA from Sarkaghat. As per media reports, former Kinnaur BJP MLA Tejwant Negi, former Ani MLA Kishori Lal, former Mandi MP Maheshwar Singh’s son Hiteshwar Singh were also present.
Reports confirmed that former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Jai Ram Thakur has already met several disgruntled BJP leaders to convince them to lend their support to Ranaut.
Notably, there is also a palpable tension between the Virbhadra family and Himachal chief minister Sukhwinder Sukhu especially after six MLAs deserted the party and joined the rival BJP camp.
Chauhan said that stakes are much higher for the Congress party in this election as they are facing not just Lok Sabha elections but also by-election on assembly segments. “Congress must fight unitedly if it wants to survive. Otherwise, things are going to be very tough for the party after declaration of Lok sabha results on June 4.”
