Rana, who is only the second tribal woman from Himachal to be in the poll race in Lahaul & Spiti, and that too after a gap of 52 years, faces two former MLAs, Congress rebel-BJP nominee Ravi Thakur and former BJP minister and Independent candidate Ram Lal Markanda in the Assembly by-poll.
A triangular contest awaits the by-poll in the tribal Lahaul & Spiti Assembly segment in Himachal Pradesh, where a woman nominee is challenging the male bastion after a gap of 52 years.
Congress nominee and Zila Parishad Chairman Anuradha Rana, 31, is only the second tribal woman of Himachal Pradesh contesting in Lahaul & Spiti after Congress leader Lata Thakur, who was elected to the state Assembly from Lahaul & Spiti in 1972.
Lata Thakur had died in 1976 in a road accident.
Congress rebel, now BJP nominee, former MLA, Ravi Thakur is Lata Thakur’s son. Thakur, who played a major role in getting Anuradha Rana elected as Zila Parishad Chairman in Lahaul & Spiti, is now facing stiff competition from Rana.
Former BJP minister, Ram Lal Markanda, who was expelled from BJP for filing a nomination for a by-poll after Ravi Thakur was given a ticket, is also contesting as an Independent.
Lahaul Spiti has around 25,000 voters, with nearly 50% women voters. All three leaders, Ravi Thakur, Anuradha Rana and Ram Lal Markanda come from Lahaul valley in the tribal Lahaul & Spiti district, giving enough ground to over 6000 voters in Spiti the deciding power.
Three-time former MLA Markanda and two-time former MLA Thakur have been old rivals in Lahaul & Spiti and have defeated each other twice, while Anuradha Rana is in the electoral fray for the first time.
In the 2022 Assembly polls, Thakur defeated sitting BJP MLA and minister Markanda with 1616 votes.
The situation in the tribal constituency is quite different this time, as Congress rebel Thakur, who got a BJP ticket for the by-poll, just 15 months after he won on a Congress ticket in December 2022, could not muster much support from the Congress workers after joining BJP.
The BJP men too are confused over his candidature.
Markanda, who was expelled from BJP after he didn’t withdraw his nomination as an Independent, has the backing of his old friends, who were with him in the Himachal Vikas Congress when he started his electoral career in 1998, and some BJP workers.
Rana has the advantage that the Congress leaders and workers in Lahaul & Spiti stand behind her solidly even after Thakur left Congress.
Markanda announced his willingness to contest from the Congress party (he was associated with the student organisation of Congress- NSUI- during his University days) when the BJP gave a ticket to Thakur for a by-poll, the entire Congress in Lahaul & Spiti got together to oppose the ticket to Markanda.
“We all had demanded that the party men would not accept the imported candidate. Anyone from the Congress party would do. The Chief Minister and the party listened to us. And see every Congressman is now working for the official nominee,” said Suresh Kardo, former district NSUI and Youth Congress President from Lahaul & Spiti.
A resident from Patan valley of Lahaul, Mohan Lal, who has been following the elections for over three and a half decades, finds that there would be a division of votes between Ravi Thakur and Ram Lal Markanda, while Anuradha Rana’s vote bank is intact.
“She has been active in politics for quite some time and enjoys the advantage of a woman candidate, as Lahaul & Spiti has got any woman in the fray after 52 years. Yet I feel the voting pattern in Spiti would hold the sway to the poll result,” he said.
On the field, BJP nominee Thakur is now seeking votes, explaining the situation that led to his ouster from Congress and the indifference of the government towards him and his constituency, Markanda is talking about local issues, BJP’s stance to oust him for a candidate imported from Congress.
Rana, however, is giving a different twist to the entire campaign.
“After years long, you have a woman candidate in Lahaul Spiti. I won’t say that I seek votes only being a woman candidate. You all know that we already have a Congress government in Himachal Pradesh. People of Lahaul & Spiti are quite intelligent and having a Congress MLA from Lahaul & Spiti would be an advantageous position for the tribal constituency,” Rana said in her appeal to the voters.
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