Kangana Ranaut is the star Lok Sabha candidate in Himachal Pradesh but it’s the byelections to six Assembly seats that is the talking point in the northern hill state.

A cliffhanger could well be on the cards in the Assembly bypolls, being held simultaneously with the elections for the four Lok Sabha constituencies on Saturday.

The Congress needs to pick up at least a couple of these Assembly seats to secure the government which is under threat of an Operation Lotus if the BJP returns to power with a big mandate at the Centre.

But if the BJP wins all six Assembly seats — Sujanpur, Dharamshala, Barsar, Lahaul-Spiti, Gagret and Kutlehar — they will have 34 members, along with the three Independent MLAs already supporting it, in a House of 68. The Congress also stands at 34, making the Assembly battle intense and bitter; more so because the BJP has fielded six Congress turncoats in the bypolls.

Losing all six is not an option and chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has, predictably, turned it into not just a fight for survival but also an ego battle. He continues to smart over six of his erstwhile party colleagues voting for the BJP candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections in February, ensuring the defeat of lawyer-politician Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

The buzz over the bypolls is louder than for the four Lok Sabha constituencies — Kangra, Hamirpur, Shimla and Mandi, the candidature of actress Kangana Ranaut from her home district notwithstanding.

It is Mandi that’s undoubtedly drawing the maximum eyeballs, and not just because of the presence of the Queen star. The Congress, by fielding Shimla Rural MLA Vikramaditya Singh — who had resigned from the state cabinet soon after the Rajya Sabha fiasco, has sought to kill two birds with one stone: Address the factionalism and retain the seat won by his mother Pratibha Singh in a 2021 bypoll by a slender margin
of 7,490 votes.

What might have been a cakewalk for Kangana has now become a battle royale. Singh, a member of the Bushahr royal family, is fighting to retain the family pocket borough held by his father Virbhadra Singh, Himachal’s longest-serving chief minister, thrice since the 1970s and his mother an equal number of times.

Mandi is also the native place of former chief minister Jai Ram Thakur, who is leading the BJP campaign in the state. For the Congress, Mandi is its surest bet of the four Lok Sabha seats and Singh is hoping his legacy will carry him through against the “Modi ki guarantee” that Kangana is banking on.

Himachal watchers say another keen battle is on in Kangra where the Congress has fielded former Rajya Sabha member Anand Sharma.

Given that the armed forces is a preferred career path for many in the constituency, the Congress’s assurance of rolling back the Agniveer short service scheme for army recruitment appears to have found traction. So much so that last weekend, the BJP had to issue a video statement of Union home minister Amit Shah to address criticism against the scheme on his tour of Kangra.

The Agniveer narrative built up by the Congress is finding resonance in Hamirpur also where I&B minister Anurag Thakur is contesting.

Him of the ‘goli maron saalon ko’ fame, Thakur — the dynast son of former Himachal Pradesh chief minister PK Dhumal — is seeking a fifth term.

While the BJP is targeting the Congress for its “failed guarantees”, particularly citing the delayed implementation of the ₹1,500 guarantee for women made during the Assembly elections, the Congress is slamming the Modi government for abandoning the state during last year’s floods.

The BJP’s criticism of the ₹1,500 guarantee to women is valid. It was announced in March this year, to be implemented from the following month; leaving it too late in the day for the scheme to have much impact, electorally.

Himachal Pradesh votes today