Una (Himachal Pradesh), May 25 (IANS) Firmly believing that the Congress would be restricted to 40 Lok Sabha seats, Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday praised his colleague and four-time MP Anurag Thakur, saying, “The BJP has sent a very big leader to your constituency”.

“You people are lucky to get an MP like Anurag Thakur. Vote wisely,” HM Shah said while addressing a massive election rally at Amb in Una district in support of Union Minister Thakur, the BJP’s candidate from the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat.

Praising Thakur for the development of Hamirpur and connecting youngsters to BJP’s ideology, HM Shah said, “Modiji has given you a readymade minister. I have known Anurag ‘bhai’ (brother) for years. Now he’s working as Modi’s companion in Modiji’s cabinet.

“You will not find such a parliamentarian even if you search with a lamp. Modiji loves the Himalayas and Himachal. Sometimes the people of Gujarat get jealous whether Modiji is from Himachal or Gujarat,” said HM Shah.

Without mincing words, HM Shah said Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) “is a part of India and we will take it”.

HM Shah hit out at the Congress for trying to “frighten us” by saying the neighbouring country possesses atom bombs. “Rahul ‘baba’ we are from the BJP, we are not scared of the atom bomb. PoK is of India, it will remain so and we will take it.”

The Home Minister said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already won 310 seats in the first five phases of Lok Sabha polls and the target of '400 paar' would be achieved in the sixth and the last phases.

He said the Congress would be restricted to just 40 seats. “Who will become Prime Minister if Congress comes to power,” HM Shah asked the crowd.

Since his maiden electoral victory in the May 2008 parliamentary bypoll at the age of 34, Anurag Thakur, a strategist and youth icon, had served the BJP’s youth wing as its president for seven years. He won the 2019 Lok Sabha polls by a record margin of 3.87 lakh votes, with a vote share of 69 per cent.

The Congress last won this seat in 1996. Now Hamirpur is the BJP’s bastion from where Anurag Thakur’s father and two-time Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal was elected thrice as an MP.

Traditionally, this Lok Sabha seat has been with the BJP since 1998, when Suresh Chandel was elected as the MP. He was caught in a sting operation after the cash-for-query scandal in Parliament in 2005.

In 2007, Dhumal became the MP from Hamirpur but later resigned to take over as the chief minister. This necessitated the bypoll and since 2008 Minister Thakur has been the MP from this seat for four consecutive terms.

This parliamentary constituency has a significantly high literacy rate wherein people evaluate development while casting their vote, Minister Thakur has said.

In every parliamentary election in the state, which witnesses a direct contest between the Congress and the BJP, Hamirpur has seen more aggressive campaigning as compared to the other three Lok Sabha constituencies - Shimla (Reserved), Kangra and Mandi.

Out of these 17 Assembly seats in the Hamirpur parliamentary seat, the BJP has 11 legislators and the Congress holds the remaining six seats.

The outgoing Union Minister takes credit for the introduction of new trains and the extension of rail links to Himachal, the building of premier technical institutes and a Central university and the extension and maintenance of national highways in the state.

Polling for all four Himachal Pradesh Lok Sabha seats will be held on June 1. The results will be out on June 4, as in the rest of the country.