How Kangra voters see it: ‘Congress candidate better, but BJP has Modi’

“Pawan Kajal bahut achcha candidate hai.Kishan Kapoor se bahut achcha…Hamein bahut pasand hai. Par Kishan Kapoor ke upar Modi hai (Pawan Kajal is a very good candidate, far better candidate than Kishan Kapoor. We like him very much. But, Kishan Kapoor has Modi above him,” says Sunny Dogra, one of the autorickshaw drivers, as others nod in agreement.

Suresh Kumar of Kholi village, 4 km from Kangra, says, “In 2014, I knew I wanted to vote for Modi ji. I like what he’s done at the Centre and many of the schemes that his government has run.I am yet to decide who I will vote for, but I like what Modi ji has done in the past five years. Rahul Gandhi doesn’t seem like an option in front of Modi.”

Shanta Kumar connection

Kajal was formerly associated with the BJP, but he left the party when he was denied candidature from Kangra in the 2012 state Assembly polls. He contested the election as an Independent and won. He later joined Congress and again won the 2017 state Assembly polls from Kangra.

Kajal is among the four Congress candidates who had won the Dalhousie, Fatehpur, Kangra and Palampur seats in the 2017 Assembly polls. The rest of the 13 state Assembly seats that fall under Kangra Lok Sabha seat went to BJP, including the Dharamshala seat which went to BJP’s Kapoor.

Kapoor, the food, civil supplies and consumers affairs minister in the Jai Ram Thakur government, was given candidature after MP from Kangra, Shanta Kumar, who is a former chief minister and four-time MP from the seat, was dropped from the list of BJP candidates contesting Lok Sabha polls from the state.

However, both Kajal and Kapoor having been groomed under Shanta Kumar’s wing. Shanta Kumar has been refraining from directly attacking Kajal in his campaigns for BJP, said sources.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, BJP had acquired 53.85 per cent votes, winning all four seats in the state.

The Congress, which had won no seats, had got 41.07 per cent votes. In the Kangra seat, BJP’s Shanta Kumar had won with 57.03 per cent votes, while Congress’s Chander Kumar, who lost, got 35.76 per cent votes.

In Lok Sabha elections held in the past five decades, BJP won the seat six times, and Congress won six times.

OBC-Gaddi vote factor

The OBC votes and votes of the Gaddi tribe matter in the Kangra seat. Other than the votes that he will get in the name of Modi, Kapoor, being a Gaddi, is banking on Gaddi voters who are present in sizeable numbers in Dharamshala, Palampur, Baijnath (SC) and Shahpur state Assembly seats that fall under Kangra Lok Sabha.

While Kajal is depending on the traditional Congress voters, being an OBC, he is also banking on the votes from the community, which is present in huge numbers in Kangra, Jwalamukhi, Nagrota, Dharamshala and Shahpur Assembly seats.

Local issues sidelined

For the Kangra seat, local issues include the pending rail project, road connectivity to rural areas, expansion of Kangra airport at Gaggal and unemployment.

However, the BJP and Congress campaigns have not focused on these matters.

In his campaign, Kapoor has been seeking votes citing the ‘jan kalyan’ (public welfare) schemes of the Modi government, and “achievements” of the Jai Ram Thakur government over the past year.

Meanwhile, Kajal is targeting the Modi government and Kapoor during his campaign, calling the Modi government a “failure”.