Queen’s gambit: Kangana beats royal scion

KULLU: Women voters in Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi seem to have played as significant a role in BJP rookie Kangana Ranaut’s triumph over Vikramaditya Singh as her movie-star allure and a bit of Modi magic as he publicly rooted for her, saying she reflected “the aspirations of our nation’s daughters”.
In a contest that could have been billed as ‘Queen vs Royal Scion’, women voters outnumbered men at the booths.Election Commission’s data shows 5.03 lakh women, or 74% of the 9.9 lakh-strong female electorate, voted in the Mandi election. In contrast, the male turnout was 72% of the 4.9-lakh registered voters.
The percentage of women voters who voted was decidedly higher in the assembly segments of Sundernagar, Nachan, Darang, Jogindernagar, Mandi, Balh and Sarkaghat. In Sarkaghat, of which Kangana’s native village of Bhambla is a part, the percentage of women voters was again way higher than men. Kangana not only led in the nine assembly segments of Mandi district, but was also ahead in the assembly segments of other districts, including Kullu, Manali, Banjar and Bharmour.
Kangana portrayed herself as “a daughter of Mandi” and accused Congress of humiliating her. Crediting Prime Minister Modi for her win, Kangana said Congress also paid the price of unfairly targeting her. Vikramaditya’s defeat is expected to weaken his position within Congress in Himachal, often shored up by his late father Virbhadra Singh's legacy in state politics.
Vikramaditya, who lost by 74,755 votes to Kangana, had in February come out in support of the six Congress rebels who voted against the party in the Rajya Sabha polls and later switched to BJP. His statements in support of the dissidents and his resignation as public works minister were seen at the time as an attempt to bring down the Congress govt led by Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu. He later withdrew his resignation and agreed to contest the Mandi seat.
Vikramaditya’s defeat and the fact that four of the six rebels lost the assembly bypolls on BJP tickets will help strengthen Sukhu’s position within the party.