Himachal Lok Sabha Elections 2024: The election battle in Himachal Pradesh has been fought mainly between Congress and BJP. The Third Front has almost always failed in Himachal Pradesh. Meanwhile, Bahujan Samaj Party has also announced its candidates for all four Lok Sabha seats of Himachal Pradesh. BSP has fielded Anil Kumar from Shimla, Prakash Chandra Bhardwaj from Mandi, Hem Raj from Hamirpur and Rekha Rani from Kangra. Bahujan Samaj Party’s eyes are mainly on the votes of the deprived and backward sections of the society.
BSP’s best performance in Himachal Pradesh was in the 2007 assembly elections. When BSP contested elections on 67 seats and secured 7.26% votes and Sanjay Choudhary reached the Assembly as the only MLA of the party from Kangra Assembly seat. In the year 2017, Sanjay Choudhary contested the elections on BJP ticket, but lost the election to Pawan Kajal of Congress. After this, BSP’s performance continued to decline in 2012 and 2017. BSP fielded candidates on 66 seats in 2012 and 42 seats in 2017, but no candidate could even save his deposit. The party’s vote share fell to 1.7% in 2012 and 0.5% in 2017.
Bahujan Samaj Party got 0.9 percent votes
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Bahujan Samaj Party got 0.9 percent votes. In this election, Bharatiya Janata Party got 69.7 percent votes, while Congress got 27.5 percent votes. The year 2019 Lok Sabha elections was historic for the Bharatiya Janata Party, because BJP took the lead in all 68 assembly constituencies in this Lok Sabha election. This had not happened in any election before 2019.
Third party not accepted in Himachal
There has been little acceptance of the third party among the people of Himachal Pradesh. Lok Sabha Elections Mainly MPs from Congress and BJP have been reaching the Lok Sabha after winning. In the year 1999, Dhaniram Shandil won on the ticket of Himachal Vikas Congress. In the year 1998, when Pandit Sukhram formed Himachal Vikas Congress. Then he was successful in becoming MLA on five seats. Among them, Mansa Ram, Ramlal Markanda, Dhaniram Shandil, Mahendra Thakur and Prakash Chaudhary became MLAs.
Himachal Vikas Congress later supported Bharatiya Janata Party and Prof. Prem Kumar Dhumal became the Chief Minister of Himachal for the first time. Leaving aside this exception of the year 1998, Congress and BJP have been dominant in Himachal Pradesh. In such a situation, it is not going to be easy for the Bahujan Samaj Party to climb the mountains of Himachal Pradesh.