Shimla: The Congress has won four of the six assembly seats that went to bypolls in Himachal Pradesh, securing a majority in the 68-member assembly which is down to 65 members after the resignations of three independent MLAs.
The party improved its tally from the existing 34 to 38. The BJP’s tally has gone up to 27 following victory in two seats in the bypolls. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, while campaigning in the state, had said that the Congress government in Himachal will go soon.
The Congress’s Ranjit Rana defeated BJP’s Rajinder Rana by a margin of 2,174 votes in Sujanpur, the home segment of Union Minister Anurag Thakur. Other candidates of the ruling party, Vivek Sharma won Kutlehar in Una, defeating Devinder Bhutto by 4,272 votes, and Rakesh Kalia defeated BJP’s Chaitanya Sharma by 7,970 votes.
The first woman candidate from Lahaul Spiti in the last five decades, Congress’s Anuradha Rana, defeated BJP rebel Ramlal Markanda by a margin of 786 votes and BJP’s Ravi Thakur finished third with 2,934 votes.
BJP’s Sudhir Sharma defeated Congress’s Devinder Jaggi in Dharamshala, and Inder Dutt Lakhanpal defeated Subhash Chand in Barsar.
Ranjit Rana had lost the 2022 assembly polls from Sujanpur to then Congress candidate Rajinder Rana. Rajinder Rana, as a Congress candidate, had defeated former BJP CM Prem Kumar Dhumal in 2017 when the latter was CM candidate. There was a silent campaign in Hamirpur district of one vote for PM (vote for Anurag Thakur to elect BJP government at the Centre) and one vote for CM (Save CM Sukhvinder Singh’s government).
Rakesh Kalia, another defector, defeated Chaitanya Sharma by a margin of 7,970 votes.
Besides Lok Sabha elections, bypolls were also held on the six assembly seats in the state, necessitated by the disqualification of six Congress rebel legislators who voted for BJP’s Harsh Mahajan in the March Rajya Sabha election, leading to the defeat of Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singvi. The political crisis brought down the number of Congress MLAs in the 68-member house from 40 to 34 and the Sukku government needed at least one MLA to cross the halfway mark.
Political analyst MPS Rana told ThePrint that the BJP was trying to get close to the magic number. “With the help of three Independents and six rebels, BJP was trying to increase its numbers from existing 25 to 34. BJP was expecting to win all six seats besides three vacated by the Independents. But the government is safe for now,” he said.
Dharamshala recorded 71.2 percent voting, Lahaul Spiti 75.09 percent, Sujanpur 73.76 percent, Barsar 71.69 percent, Gagret 75.14 percent and Kutlehar recorded 76.89 percent voting on 1 June. In all these seats, the women voters percentage is more than that of male voters.
What happened in the RS polls
Six Congress MLAs — Sudhir Sharma (Dharamshala), Rajinder Rana (Sujanpur) Ravi Thakur (Lahaul Spiti), Devinder Bhutto (Kutlehar), Chaitanya Sharma (Gagret), Inder Dutt Lakhanpal (Barsar) — voted for BJP candidate for Rajya Sabha Harsh Mahajan, a one time Congress leader and close aide of former CM Virbhadra Singh, in February. None of them attended assembly the next day despite the whip issued by Congress for the passing of the budget for this fiscal.
All of them, along with three Independents — whose resignations were accepted Monday — remained outside the state for a month. Meanwhile, acting swiftly on the disqualification petition filed by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Harshvardhan Chauhan, Speaker Himachal Pradesh Vidhansabha Kuldeep Singh Pathania disqualified six Congress rebel MLAs under the anti-defection law on 29 February.
The rebels joined BJP on 23 March and the party fielded them for the bypolls announced on six assembly seats. In 2022, Congress had won 40 seats in the 68-member house while the BJP got 25 seats and three Independents reached the assembly. Post Rajya Sabha elections, the Congress number came down to 34 amidst the BJP’s claim that the Congress government would collapse any day and that it would form government soon.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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