New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rebels damaged the party’s prospects in six seats in Himachal Pradesh, but weren’t instrumental in the party’s overall defeat in the state, indicates an analysis of the results by ThePrint.
The BJP Thursday ended up with 25 seats in the 68-member Himachal assembly, while the Congress secured a clear majority with 40. Even if it had won the six seats where the rebels cut into BJP votes, the party would have still only had 31 seats — a slimmer margin than at present, but still behind the Congress.
In the run-up to last month’s Himachal assembly elections, the results of which were declared Thursday, as many as 17 BJP leaders, including sitting MLAs, broke away from the party to contest as independent, mostly after being denied tickets by the BJP.
In seven of the 17 constituencies contested by the rebels — Anni, Sundernagar, Kangra, Nachan, Bilaspur, Banjar and, Mandi — the BJP still managed to secure a majority. In all of these seats, except Kangra which had been been previously held by the Congress, the seats were already held by the BJP.
The Congress won three of the 17 — Manali, Fatehpur and Chamba — without the BJP rebels getting enough votes to impact the fate of the BJP candidates. In Manali, the Congress ousted the incumbent BJP.
Kripal Singh Parmar, who had become the face of rebellion within the BJP, after Prime Minister Modi unsuccessfully tried to persuade him to sit out, had contested from Fatehpur. He, however, managed to secure only 2,811 votes, while the BJP candidate received 25,884 votes from the Fatehpur seat. The Congress candidate won with 33,238 votes here.
Hamirpur saw Ashish Sharma, a former Congress member who contested as an independent, wrest the seat from BJP.
The rebels were a deciding factor in the BJP’s loss in only six constituencies. While one of these was won by the rebel candidate, in six others, they managed to draw enough votes to be instrumental in impacting the fate of the BJP here. This means the BJP could have won in these seats if the votes received by the rebel candidates were added to the BJP tally.
In Nalgarh, rebel candidate K.L. Thakur won, with an almost 45 per cent vote share. Thakur defeated the BJP candidate, Lakhwinder Rana, who stood third in the race for the seat, by over 16,000 votes. Rana, a Congress turncoat was fielded by the BJP as he had won this seat on a Congress ticket in 2017.
In Kinnaur, BJP rebel Tejwant Singh seems to have marred the party’s prospects by bagging 8,500 votes. The winning margin between the Congress and BJP candidates was a little short of 7000 votes. While the BJP candidate secured 13,732 votes, the Congress candidate got 20,696.
Incumbent BJP MLA in Indora, Reeta Devi, lost by 2,250 votes to the Congress candidate. Rebel BJP leader, Manohar Lal, won 4,442 votes here.
Sitting Congress MLA from Kullu, Sunder Singh Thakur, managed to retain his seat by a margin of a little over 4,000 votes. He too was indirectly helped by BJP’s rebel candidate Ram Singh who managed to get 11,937 votes while the BJP candidate Narotam Singh secured 26,183 votes. The Congress received 30,286 votes.
Similarly, in Dharamshala, BJP rebel Vipan Nehria garnered 7,416 votes, whereas the margin between the winning Congress candidate Sudhir Sharma and BJP candidate Rakesh Kumar, stood at 3,285 votes.
In Barsar, BJP rebel Sanjeev Kumar got 15,252 votes, playing a role in the defeat of BJP candidate Maya Sharma, who lost this seat by a margin of 13,792 votes. Congress candidate Inder Dutt Lakhanpal won the seat with 30,293 votes.
Also Read: In Himachal’s Fatehpur, BJP rebel Kripal Parmar, asked by Modi to ‘sit out’, loses to Congress
What was at stake?
The Himachal elections were a high-stake battle for the ruling BJP, which had won 44 of the total 68 assembly seats in the hill state in the 2017 polls, while the Congress, had scored 21.
The party also faced a prestige battle here, as it is the home state of BJP national president J.P. Nadda and union cabinet minister Anurag Thakur.
The massive rebellion that the BJP faced in the run-up to the elections, was also attributed to the fact that the party fielded Congress turncoats who had joined the BJP before the 12 November elections, instead of party workers, said sources in BJP.
The BJP’s state and central leadership had tried to intervene to address the rebellion, but were unsuccessful. Many of the sitting MLAs were unhappy with the ticket distribution and after being denied tickets decided to contest independently.
The people of Himachal also have, since 1985, alternated between the two parties, not electing either for consecutive terms. The last party that won two consecutive terms in the state was the Congress, which did so in the 1982 and 1985 state polls, according to Election Commission records.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)
Also Read: Buoyant Congress faces task of picking new Himachal CM. Here are 3 main contenders