Ram represented the Mandi Assembly seat from 1963 to 1984. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1984 and served as a junior minister in the
Rajiv Gandhi government. He served as minister of state for defence production and supplies, planning and food and civil supplies. Sukh Ram was the
Union minister of state (independent charge) holding the communications portfolio from 1993 to 1996. While Ram represented the Mandi Lok Sabha constituency, his son contested and won the Assembly seat in 1993. Ram won the Mandi Lok Sabha seat in 1996, but the two were expelled from the Congress party after the telecom scam. They formed the
Himachal Vikas Congress, entered into a post-poll alliance with the BJP and joined the government. Ram contested the Assembly Elections in 1998 from Mandi Sadar and won by a huge margin of 22000+ votes; that was highest in the State. His son
Anil Sharma was elected to the
Rajya Sabha in 1998. In the 2003 Assembly poll, Ram retained the Mandi Assembly seat but joined the Congress in the run-up to the 2004 Lok Sabha polls. Sharma won the Mandi Assembly seat in 2007 and 2012 as a Congress candidate. In 2017, prior to elections, Ram joined BJP along with Sharma and grandson Aashray Sharma. It is considered as impact of Ram that BJP won 9 out of 10 seats in Mandi District and one seat i.e. Joginder Nagar was won by an independent candidate. Sharma was the Power Minister in the state of Himachal Pradesh under BJP regime. The family has a significant influence among the Himachal's brahmins, who comprise nearly 20%, or a fifth, of the state's electorate (the second-highest for any state in India, next to
Uttarakhand). His other grandson
Aayush Sharma is an actor and married superstar
Salman Khan's sister. Ram crossed over to
Bharatiya Janata Party in 2017 before reverting to the
Indian National Congress in 2019. == Jail ==