Lok Sabha elections 2024: Kangana Ranaut to contest from Mandi on BJP ticket

BJP 5th candidate list 2024, Lok Sabha election 2024: Actor Kangana Ranaut was named as the BJP candidate from Himachal Pradesh's Mandi on Sunday, while senior party leader Dr Rajeev Bharadwaj would contest from Kangra constituency in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. Ranaut and Bharadwaj's names figured in the fifth list of BJP candidates released on Sunday.

The BJP earlier renominated Union Information and Broadcast Minister Anurag Thakur from Hamirpur and sitting MP Suresh Kashyap from Shimla (SC) constituency. With this, the party has declared its candidates for all four Lok Sabha seats in the state, where polls will be held in the seventh and last phase on June 1. The counting of votes will be held on June 4.

After Ranaut's name was announced in the candidate list, she said in a post on X, "My beloved Bharat and Bhartiya Janta's own party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), always had my unconditional support. Today the national leadership of BJP has announced me as their Lok Sabha candidate from my birth place Himachal Pradesh, Mandi (constituency).” “I abide by the high command's decision on contesting Lok Sabha polls. I feel honoured and elated to officially join the party and look forward to being a worthy karyakarta and a reliable public servant,” she said.

Born to a Rajput family in a small town, Bhambla in Mandi district, Ranaut is an actor, filmmaker, producer and a four-time National Award winner. Speculations about Ranaut contesting Lok Sabha polls were rife for quite some time.

In October 2022, Ranaut had publicly said that she is open to contesting from Mandi if the BJP offers her a ticket. Crediting Narendra Modi with a “change” in the country since he became the prime minister in 2014, Ranaut had said a feeling of pride and nationalism prevails among every Indian.

In Kangra, the BJP declared Bharadwaj as the party candidate, denying ticket to sitting MP Kishan Kapoor. Bharadwaj, who hails from Kangra, is currently the vice president of the BJP's Himachal Pradesh unit and has held several positions in the organisation.

He was the president of Kangra Cooperative Bank in the previous BJP government in the state. The 61-year-old is a practising doctor by profession.

The Mandi Lok Sabha seat is being represented by Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee president Pratibha Singh, who had won the by-election in November 2021.

Earlier on Wednesday, Singh had announced that she would not contest the Lok Sabha elections as the situation was "not favourable" and that workers were disheartened. Her statement had put the Congress in a tight spot.

Singh, who is the wife of former chief minister Virbhadra Singh and mother of Public Works Minister Vikramaditya Singh, added that she would fully support any candidate which the central leadership of the Congress considered suitable. There are four Lok Sabha seats in Himachal Pradesh: Shimla, Mandi, Hamirpur and Kangra.

The Congress has not announced its candidates so far.

In 2019, the BJP had won all the four Lok Sabha seats with a thumping majority, with Krishan Kapoor winning by a margin of 4,77,623 votes in Kangra, Ram Swaroop Sharma by a margin of 4,05, 459 in Mandi, Anurag Thakur with a margin of 3,99,572 in Hamirpur and Suresh Kashyap with a margin of 3,27,515 in Shimla.

However, the death of Sharma led to by-elections in Mandi, in 2021, which Congress state chief Pratibha Singh won by a margin of 8,766 votes in light of a sympathy wave after the demise of her husband and former CM Virbhadra Singh.