Congress fields Anand Sharma from Kangra, his first Lok Sabha election

He was elected to the Rajya Sabha for the first time in April 1984 and has been a member of the Upper House of Parliament for four terms. He was a Union minister during the UPA government under Manmohan Singh and was a deputy leader of the Congress in the Rajya Sabha till he retired in 2022.

The decision to field Sharma, a prominent member of the G-23 group of Congress leaders, comes a month after he wrote to AICC chief president Mallikarjun Kharge questioning the party’s aggressive campaign pitch for holding a caste census.

The party had “never engaged in nor endorsed identity politics” and argued that departure from the “historic position” is a matter of concern for many in the party, Sharma had written. Sharma had been upset with the leadership for not fielding him from Himachal Pradesh in the recent Rajya Sabha elections.

Overlooking him, the party had fielded Abhishek Singhvi, an outsider, which ended in a fiasco with six Congress MLAs and three independents supporting the government voting for the BJP nominee resulting in Singhvi’s shock defeat. Sharma will take on BJP’s state vice-president Rajiv Bhardwaj from the Kangra seat. The BJP had replaced its sitting MP Kishan Kapoor with Bhardwaj this time. Kapoor had won 2019 lok sabha elections with a record margin of 4.77 lakh votes.

According to Congress insiders, most of the party MLAs from Vidhan Sabha Assemblies falling in Kangra parliamentary seat are close to Sharma. They suggested his name to Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, who further conveyed it to the high command. His Brahmin background also played a role in him being chosen as the Kangra candidate.

Ahead of the Assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh in 2022, Sharma had reluctantly joined the party campaign. He had earlier resigned from the chairmanship of the Congress Steering Committee, claiming that he was not being consulted in decision-making and had cited discontent with the party’s affairs.

Hamirpur candidate Raizada won the 2017 Assembly elections and became an MLA for the first time. Congress’s Mumbai vice-president Patil will take on BJP candidate and Union Minister Piyush Goyal from Mumbai North Lok Sabha seat, which is considered one of the strongholds of the BJP with a sizeable Gujarati population.

Congress has now announced candidates for all the four seats in Himachal Pradesh. It had already named state PWD minster Vikramaditya Singh from Mandi Lok Sabha seat and party MLA Vinod Sultanpuri from Shimla.