BJP faces anti-incumbency, three-pronged contests in HP and Gujarat

Himachal Pradesh has seen bipolar contests between the Congress and the BJP since 1990

The chief minister of Himachal Pradesh, Jai Ram Thakur, must be an anxious man. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost every by-election it contested — the Mandi parliamentary seat, and the Assembly constituencies of Arki, Fatehpur and Jubbal-Kotkhai — just a few months ago (October 2021) on his watch. All the by-elections were caused because of the death of sitting candidates. The BJP deputed a team to conduct an internal probe and the conclusions were that the party (read the CM) failed to read the mood of Mandi and support for Pratibha Singh, the wife of six-term state chief minister