Himachal Cricket Association president and son of Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, Anurag Thakur is all set to enter electoral politics in Himachal Pradesh. Thakur, 34, is set to be the BJP’s candidate for the byelection for Hamirpur parliamentary seat on May 22. Though his name is yet to be placed before the party’s central election committee, which is expected to meet shortly, there is complete unanimity in the BJP’s state unit for fielding Thakur. Other contenders for the ticket have also agreed to back his candidature.

At a meeting of the BJP’s state election committee held in Chandigarh late on Wednesday evening, Thakur emerged as a potential party nominee. The committee later conveyed its decision to Dhumal. “One thing is very certain, that BJP will win this seat by a bigger margin than what Dhumal himself scored in the 2007 byelection,” said Satyapal Jain, who is in-charge of the party affairs in Himachal. Besides Jain, others present at the meeting included state BJP president Jairam Thakur and Shanta Kumar, now a Rajya Sabha member.

Initially, Dhumal was not very inclined to field Thakur at this stage. He relented after a word from senior central leaders. “The party has recognised my son’s contributions to cricket and decided to field him as candidate. The party is going to win the election with an impressive margin,” he predicted on Thursday.

The seat fell vacant following Dhumal’s resignation after he took over as CM on December 30, 2007. Dhumal had won Hamirpur seat in the 2007 byelection by a record margin of 80,000 votes, sweeping 15 out of 17 Assembly constituencies in the districts of Hamirpur, Una, Bilaspur and Kangra. The victory came as a big relief for the party which had got bad press following the involvement of MP Suresh Chandel in the cash-for-query scam, eventually leading to his removal from Parliament.

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