Rana was at the forefront of engineering the rebellion within the ruling Congress in HP and contested on a BJP ticket after disqualification.
Congress rebel turned BJP nominee, Rajinder Rana, who was at the forefront of engineering the rebellion against Congress within 12 months of rule, has finally lost the by-poll from the Sujanpur Assembly segment, which he has represented as an Independent and then on Congress ticket twice in the past.
Congress candidate, Captain Ranjit Singh Rana, who had joined the Congress party after Rajinder Rana went to BJP, defeated him with 2440 votes in today's poll results.
Rajinder Rana had contested on Congress ticket in 2022 Assembly by-polls and had defeated Captain Ranjit Singh Rana with 399 votes.
Sujanpur Assembly constituency in Hamirpur district had a different reputation after it turned the fate of former two-time BJP Chief Minister, Prem Kumar Dhumal in 2017, who suffered defeat despite being the CM face of BJP.
People in Sujanpur generally felt they had made a mistake by defeating BJP’s CM face, Prem Kumar Dhumal, and would not want to repeat it.
The results show it, especially with Chief Minister, Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu also having worked hard in Sujanpur to see Rana’s defeat in the by-poll.
In 2017, when the BJP chose to change Dhumal’s constituency from Hamirpur to Sujanpur while declaring him CM face, the BJP made it to power, but Dhumal lost to Rana.
The political talk was that Rana wanted to settle scores with the former BJP CM and he did it with the backing of former six-time Congress CM, Virbhadra Singh.
In HP politics, it was seen that Singh (who died in 2021) and Dhumal were tooth and nail opposed to each other, beyond political background also.
However, equations changed full circle in just seven years, as Rana, who had been a loyalist of Singh in Congress in the past, did not go along well with the new Congress Chief Minister, Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu despite being from CM’s home district, was back to BJP and relied much on Dhumal family for the support in Assembly by-poll.
The local BJP cadres had doubted this patch-up, given the not-so-positive body language of Union Minister, Anurag Thakur and his father, Prem Kumar Dhumal, when Rana met them after joining BJP.
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