As the BJP candidate from Mandi in Himachal Pradesh, actress Kangana Ranaut is making her political debut. According to early trends released by the election commission, the actor has a significant lead with more than 70,000 votes and appears to be winning easily.
The 37-year-old Bollywood actor took a jibe at Vikramaditya Singh, the opposition Congress candidate, implying that he might now have to "pack his bags and leave."
The actor addressed rumours that she would have to leave Mandi and move back to Mumbai following the elections.
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"They will have to suffer the consequences of talking so low about a woman... And that is becoming clear today with the way we have got the lead. Mandi has not taken kindly to the insults for daughters," Ms Ranaut told ANI.
In order to retain all parliamentary seats and win six Assembly seats, the BJP, which had won every Lok Sabha seat in 2014 and 2019, was counting heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "charisma" following his three election rallies.
Meanwhile, the Congress was focusing on its sizable support base of 250,000 government employees, whose demands to reinstate the previous pension plan had been met by its government under Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.
