Our Correspondent
Hamirpur, December 27
This is the first time in the history of BJP governments in the state that Hamirpur district has been denied a ministerial berth.
During the two-and-a-half-year tenure of the Janata Party-led state government in 1977, when Shanta Kumar was the CM, Hamirpur MLA Thakur Jagdev Chand was inducted into the Cabinet. During the second stint of the Sangh-supported BJP government in 1989, Thakur Jagdev Chand again got a ministerial berth. Prem Kumar Dhumal from the district remained the CM twice. In the just-concluded Assembly elections, Dhumal was a chief ministerial candidate, but he lost the elections.
Sources said the party lost three of the five seats from the district, which did not go in its favour.