Himachal Pradesh Results 2024: Kangana Ranaut leading from Mandi Lok Sabha Seat

Early trends in the Himachal Pradesh Lok Sabha elections indicate that Bollywood star and BJP candidate Kangana Ranaut is currently leading in the Mandi parliamentary constituency. She is ahead by 5,112 votes, contesting against Congress candidate Vikramaditya Singh, with BSP candidate Prakash Chand Bhardwaj holding the third position.

According to the Election Commission of India (ECI) data, Vikramaditya Singh, representing the Congress party, is trailing behind. In the previous 2019 elections, BJP’s Ram Swaroop Sharma won the Mandi constituency seat against Congress candidate Aashray Sharma and CPI(M) candidate Dilip Singh Kayath. BJP secured 647,189 votes, while Congress garnered 241,730 votes, and CPI(M) received 14,838 votes. Similarly, in the 2014 elections, BJP’s Ram Swaroop Sharma defeated Himachal Congress Chief's Pratibha Singh, a former two-time MP, by a margin of 39,000 votes, with Sharma receiving 3.62 lakh votes compared to Singh’s 3.22 lakh votes. The CPI(M)'s Kushal Bhardwaj finished third in that election.

Pratibha Singh, the wife of the six-time Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister (late) Virbhadra Singh, representing the Indian National Congress, won the last Lok Sabha by-election in 2021 from Mandi following the death of Ram Swaroop Sharma, who won the 2019 general Lok Sabha election. Her son, Vikramaditya Singh, is now contesting the 2024 election from Mandi constituency against BJP’s Kangana Ranaut, marking her political debut.

According to the 2014 Election Commission of India data, the Mandi constituency had 11.50 lakh voters, with nearly equal distribution between genders. This number has now increased to 13.77 lakh as per the website of the Chief Electoral Officer Himachal Pradesh. The political inclination of Mandi has mirrored the trend in Himachal Pradesh, transitioning from Congress to BJP in recent years.