Hamirpur loses for the first time

Our Correspondent

Hamirpur, December 27

This is the first time in the history of BJP governments in the state that Hamirpur district has been denied a ministerial berth.

During the two-and-a-half-year tenure of the Janata Party-led state government in 1977, when Shanta Kumar was the CM, Hamirpur MLA Thakur Jagdev Chand was inducted into the Cabinet. During the second stint of the Sangh-supported BJP government in 1989, Thakur Jagdev Chand again got a ministerial berth. Prem Kumar Dhumal from the district remained the CM twice. In the just-concluded Assembly elections, Dhumal was a chief ministerial candidate, but he lost the elections.

Sources said the party lost three of the five seats from the district, which did not go in its favour.