Both Congress and BJP relied on ST Candidates for Dharamshala seat

Dharamshala, September 29, 2019: After the declaration of the names of the candidates of both the major political parties for Dharamshala by-election, it is now clear that this time the contest shall be between ST candidates, a first time in this constituency.
Congress has given ticket to a candidate of ST category after a long time, and the BJP has too announced its ticket for a candidate of ST community. The Congress has given ticket to the youth leader of the Gaddi community, Vijay Indra Karna, and BJP has also placed its bet on the young politician Vishal Nehria another Gaddi community leader. In such a situation, now both parties have placed bets on the ST class.
Congress workers had been demanding a ticket to the Gaddi community leader for a long time and the party fulfilled their long pending demand. At the same time, BJP has been fielding the candidate of ST category for the past many elections; it once again repeated its style by fielding the candidate from Gaddi Community.
Gaddi community, a strong hold of the ST class in the area and is the second largest vote bank in Dharamshala assembly constituency. There are around 80 thousand voters in Dharamshala constituency, which is being dominated by Gaddi community with its share of around 25%, while Gorkhas have a slight upper edge.
While the Congress camp is seen united over this ticket allocation, whereas some leaders of the OBC section associated with the BJP are showing their resentment. It remains to be seen how far these leaders rebel. One of these leaders has also spoken about contesting as an independent as he has been denied a BJP ticket and it will be interesting to see if he will contest the elections the independent candidate or the party will convince him.
Dharamshala seat is lying vacant due to the elevation of its BJP MLA Kishan Kapoor to Parliament in the recently held Lok Sabha elections, who defeating Sudhir Sharma of Congress. Sharma showed his unwillingness to fight this election on health ground. Monday is the last date of filling the nominations. No one has filled the papers so far.