Entire Himachal and country my 'karmabhoomi': Cong's Kangra candidate Anand Sharma

Shimla: Former Union minister and Congress candidate from the Kangra Lok Sabha seat Anand Sharma on Friday said that he would win the election with people's blessings and efforts of the party.

Sharma, who arrived here after getting the party ticket, asserted that he hails from Shimla where he was born and brought up adding that entire Himachal Pradesh and the country is his "karmabhoomi" (the place where someone works).

Talking to mediapersons here on Friday after paying obeisance at the Kali Bari temple, he said, "During my five-decade-long political journey, I have served the state and the country with dedication and commitment and did a lot for Himachal and would spell out the work done by me in detail at Dharamshala on Saturday." "We have built a lot of institutes in Himachal, especially Kangra, and these are the living proof of the work done during my five-decade-long political career," he said.

When asked why Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been saying that "election is a mission and not an ambition" for him, Sharma said that the prime minister should not have said the things he has been saying and his "claims" that the BJP has already won the elections are "undemocratic".

The prime minister should first answer what had happened to the promise made in 2014 to give two crore jobs every year, explain the "wrong policies", including the Agniveer scheme for recruitments in the Army, and his stand on the restoration of OPS (Old Pension Scheme).

En route to Shimla, Sharma stopped at Kasauli and visited the 'samadhi' of his grandmother. Sharma had spent his childhood days in Kasauli.

Sharma will take on BJP candidate Rajeev Bhardwaj in Kangra. Both the candidates are from the Brahmin community in a constituency where Rajputs and Other Backward Class (OBC) voters have a sizeable population. Both candidates are making their debut in the Lok Sabha elections.

Sharma is a four-time Rajya Sabha member while Bharadwaj, vice president of the state BJP, is the nephew of former chief minister Shanta Kumar.

During his active political career spanning five decades, Sharma was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1984, 1994, 2010 and 2016 and served as the Union minister of commerce from 2009 to 2014. He was also the Youth Congress president and chairperson and member of various Standing Committees of the Parliament.

This election is critical for Congress as it attempts to reclaim the Kangra seat, which has predominantly been a BJP stronghold. The BJP won this seat multiple times in the past, with the Congress last winning it in 2004.