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Mandi
One of the major cities of Himachal Pradesh, Mandi (latitude 31 degrees 42 minutes North and longitude 76 degrees 55 minutes East) is located 145 km north of the state capital Shimla. Mandi is the first heritage city of the state and houses several colonial-era buildings.
Voter Demographic
The Mandi parliamentary constituency has a literacy rate of 71.27 per cent and is characterized by its predominantly rural population. A substantial 93.1 per cent of voters (approximately 1,193,041) reside in rural areas, while only 6.9 per cent (about 88,421) are urban dwellers. The constituency has a diverse demographic composition, with Scheduled Castes making up 27.8 per cent (around 356,246) of the electorate and Scheduled Tribes comprising 9.5 per cent (approximately 121,739). Muslims form a small minority at 1.4 per cent (about 17,877) of voters. As of the 2019 Parliament Election, Mandi had a total of 1,281,462 registered voters across 2,079 polling booths. Voter engagement has been notably high, with a 72.6 per cent turnout in the 2019 Parliament Election, though this was a slight decrease from the impressive 77.4 per cent participation observed in the 2017 Assembly Election.
Voters
Voters
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections 1,015,810 people voted in the Himachal Pradesh's Mandi constituency, the Mandi LS seat will go to polls on June 1 in Phase -VII. According to the Election Commission of India (ECI), there were approximately 12,81,462 voters in Mandi in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Political History
Notably, Congress has been the most successful party in Mandi as it has won over 50 per cent of all the Parliamentary elections from here since 1952. Vikramaditya's father and ex-Himachal CM Virbhadra Singh has represented the Mandi LS seat three times. Virbhadra's wife Pratibha Singh and Sukh Ram have also represented Mandi on three occasions.
In 2019 LS polls, Congress lost the Mandi LS seat by a margin of over 4 lakh votes and the Grand Old Party received a big setback from Himachal as it wasn't able to garner even 30 per cent of the total votes polled in the state during that election. However, a bypoll was held on Mandi LS seat in 2021 in which Congress bagged the seat, although by a slender margin of less than 10,000 votes, as it fielded Pratibha Singh. Experts believe that the death of Virbhadra Singh in the months preceding the bypoll gave the advantage of the sympathy factor to his wife Pratibha.
BJP candidate Kangana Ranuat has won the Mandi constituency's Lok Sabha seat in 2024 general elections with a 52.87 per cent vote share. While the Indian National Congress candidate Vikramaditya Singh managed to secure 462,267 votes or 45.51 per cent of vote share.
There has been a war of words between Vikramaditya and Kangana in the run-up to the polls as the former has accused the Tanu Weds Manu actress of "disrespecting" the Sanatan Dharma after rumours of her consuming beef meat went viral on social media. However, the state unit of the BJP had filed a complaint against the Congress with the Election Commission of India against the Congress for "assassinating" Kangana's character.