Dharamsala Assembly bypoll: BJP rebel in fray, straight contest turns into three-way fight

Dharamshala: A straight fight between the BJP and the Congress for the Dharamshala Assembly seat has turned into a triangular contest after a saffron party rebel decided to enter the fray as an Independent.

This is the second time that Rakesh Kumar Chaudhary has rebelled against his party after being denied a ticket. In 2019, when he was with the Congress, Chaudhary contested an assembly bypoll from the same constituency as an Independent after being denied a ticket by his party. He lost the election and joined the BJP.

This time, Chaudhary decided to fight as an independent after the BJP named Congress turncoat Sudhir Sharma as its candidate for the seat. Sharma had defeated Choudhary in the 2022 Assembly polls.

Chaudhary was expelled from the Himachal Pradesh BJP on May 17 after he refused to follow the party diktat asking him to withdraw his nomination.

The bypolls in Dharamshala along with five other assembly seats -- Sujanpur, Gagret, Lahaul-Spiti, Badsar and Kutlehar -- were necessitated after the seats fell vacant following the disqualification of six Congress MLAs, including Sharma. The MLAs had voted for BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan in Rajya Sabha polls. All of them later joined the BJP.

As the BJP picked Sharma, Choudhary was hopeful of getting a Congress ticket but the party decided to bet on the former mayor of Dharamsala Municipal Corporation -- Devinder Jaggi.

Kishan Kapoor, a five-time BJP MLA from Dharamshala, had defeated Sharma by 2,997 votes in the 2017 assembly polls. He got elected to the Lok Sabha in 2019 and resigned from the seat necessitating a bypoll. Chaudhary contested as an independent against Vishal Nehria of the BJP but lost by a margin of 6,758 votes.

Kapoor, who was sulking after being denied a Lok Sabha ticket from Kangra, has reconciled and was present at the time of the filing of nomination by Rajiv Bharadwaj, the BJP candidate from the Kangra Lok Sabha seat.

Congress candidate Jaggi was a supporter of Sharma when he was the urban development minister between 2012-17 and got a 'Smart City' tag for Dharamshala.

Of the 14 elections, including a by-election, held in Dharamshala since 1967, the Janta Party and BJP won eight times while Congress captured the seat six times and no independent was ever elected.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has made Sharma his prime target and dubbed him a key conspirator behind the rebellion while accusing the MLAs of selling their souls for money. He has also appealed to the voters to punish them by defeating them in the by-elections.

Sharma, however, has maintained that it was the arrogance and discrimination by the chief minister against his constituency that led to the rebellion.

"The voter comes first and then the party," he told PTI.

While the construction of a central university campus is on the agenda of all three candidates, Sharma is focusing on creating avenues of employment and self-employment, construction of an IT park, an international roller and ice skating rink and beautification of Chamunda Devi temple.

Priorities of Jaggi include the construction of a mall, development of tourism, beautification of chowks and better drinking water facilities while Chaudhary said he is focussing on providing better health facilities to the people.

There are 86,603 voters in the Dharamshala assembly constituency which includes 42,939 males, and 42,702 females.

Voting for the by-elections and the four Lok Sabha constituencies in Himachal Pradesh are scheduled on the same day on June 1 and the counting of votes will be taken up on June 4.