Hamirpur Election Results 2022: Can BJP bring this constituency back in the limelight?

Hamirpur that went to the polls on November 12 during the Himachal Pradesh Assembly Elections 2022, saw a paltry voter turnout of 35.86 per cent. Once the centre of Himachal politics when Prem Kumar Dhumal, former Chief Minister and also former MLA from the constituency, was in power. Dhumal, father of Union Minister Anurag Thakur, was the former Himachal CM from 2008 to 2012 and also from 1998 to 2003.

But this year, Hamirpur is away from the limelight as Dhumal is not even a candidate.

The BJP has, this time, fielded Narendar Thakur, while INC has fielded Dr Pushpendra Verma, and AAP has fielded Sushil Kumar Saroch. The INC had initially fielded Ashish Sharma who quit from the party two days later, after which they announced Dr Verma as the candidate.

BJP aims to hold on to its bastion, and regain its lost glory in the state politics scene.

In 2017, 11 candidates contested for Hamirpur. BJP’s Ashok Kumar Singh Chandel won the election and defeated Samajwadi Party’s Dr Manoj Kumar Prajapati by a margin of 48,655 votes. The top three candidates split 93.7 per cent of the votes between them. The top three parties enjoyed 44.5 per cent, 25 per cent and 24.3 per cent votes respectively.

It must be mentioned here that 92 per cent of the voters in Hamirpur stay in rural areas. It is a largely Hindi speaking area, and is known as ‘Veer Bhoomi’ as most of its youth aim to join the defence services. It also means that the Agnipath scheme was one of the main poll issues in the district. There were wide scale protests in the district following the announcement of the Agnipath scheme.

Also Read: Election Results 2022 LIVE Updates: BJP landslide in Gujarat, Congress ahead in Himachal