Sujanpur Congress MLA Rajender Rana , who had defeated Prem Kumar Dhumal former Chief Minister and Chief Ministerial candidate of BJP in the last Assembly election in Himachal Pradesh held in 2017 , has once against outsmarted Dhumal camp by managing win for Congress supported candidate for Sujanpur nagar parishad (NP) election .

The victory of Congress supported Veena Dhiman as NP president is  significant since four councillors each supported by BJP and Congress were elected in the recently concluded election with one Independent candidate in the house of nine. The BJP supported group had a clear advantage for the election of president and vice president in Sujanpur NP as Independent Pawan Kumar had gone to meet Dhumal in Sameerpur after the election and even posed for a picture with the BJP supported group along with senior BJP leaders.

Surprisingly, the next day Congress supported Veena Dhiman was elected as president and Pawan Kumar as vice president, which is being perceived as shrewd management by Sujanpur MLA Rajender Rana to outwit the Dhumal camp.

Interestingly, Rajender Rana who entered the BJP politics in 2001 was groomed by P K Dhumal as his mentor in the politics. Rana became state BJP spokesperson in 2004 and when Dhumal came to power in 2007 he was made Chairman of the media advisory committee. But he had to quit the post in 2009 after his name figured in the Woodville hotel episode of Shimla but was later given a clean chit by then Director General of Police after the inquiry.

After this incident Rana had parted ways with Dhumal to contest Assembly election as an Independent candidate from newly created Sujanpur Assembly constituency carved out of Bamsan Assembly constituency which used to be the stronghold of PK Dhumal. Rana was elected as an Independent with a huge margin of over 14000 votes in the 2012 Assembly election.

He had resigned from the state Assembly to contest the 2014 parliament election against Dhumal’s son Anurag Thakur but lost. In the last Assembly election held in 2017 he contested as a Congress candidate against Dhumal and defeated him by 1919 votes.

The defeat at the hands of Rajender Rana was a big jolt to Dhumal because he lost a chance to become the Chief Minister in the BJP government. Moreover, his loss resulted in generational change in BJP leadership in the state giving state reign in the hands of a younger leader Jai Ram Thakur. 

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