BJP announces Kangana Ranaut candidate from Mandi parliamentary seat of Himachal

SHIMLA: The BJP has announced candidates for the remaining two Lok Sabha seats in Himachal Pradesh, with Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut announced as the candidate from the Mandi parliamentary seat and Rajeev Bhardwaj as the candidate from the Kangra parliamentary seat. Instead of relying on old faces, the BJP has preferred to field new candidates for these two seats.The biggest surprise comes in Kangra, where the party has denied a ticket to sitting MP Kishan Kapoor, while in Shimla and Hamirpur seats, the party has renominated sitting MPs.
With the announcement of candidates in Mandi and Kangra, the BJP has now declared candidates for all four parliamentary seats in Himachal Pradesh. Earlier, on March 13, the party had announced the candidature of Union Minister Anurag Thakur from the Hamirpur parliamentary seat and sitting MP Suresh Kashyap from the Shimla (SC) parliamentary seat.
The Congress, engulfed in infighting and rebellion, has not yet announced candidates for any of the seats and is still searching for candidates who could win seats for the party. In the 2014 and 2019 parliamentary elections, the Congress faced consecutive defeats on all four seats in the state. It was in the 2021 by-elections that Congress candidate Pratibha Singh, riding high on sympathy for former Chief Minister late Virbhadra Singh, managed to win from the Mandi parliamentary seat. As Pratibha Singh has already refused to contest from the Mandi seat, the Congress is struggling to find a suitable replacement.
Kangana Ranaut, born on March 23, 1987, in the Sarkaghat sub-division of Mandi district, recently participated as a keynote speaker in a social dialogue program held in Bilaspur and addressed the people of Himachal Pradesh. Her name as a BJP candidate has been circulating for a long time.
Rajeev Bhardwaj, a physician by profession, is currently the state vice president of BJP and has been associated with the party for a long time. He has held various responsibilities in the party and was also the chairman of Kangra Cooperative Bank in the previous government. Born on February 9, 1963, in Kangra, Rajeev Bhardwaj works as a personal physician.
Leader of the Opposition Jai Ram Thakur has congratulated Rajeev Bhardwaj and Kangana Ranaut for being made the BJP candidates. He said that both these candidates will receive full blessings from the people of Himachal. He added that the BJP will extend its full cooperation in achieving Prime Minister Narendra Modi's target of winning all four Lok Sabha seats in Himachal Pradesh with a significant margin.