Congress has won four while BJP, two seats in the by-elections held in six Assembly Constituencies of Himachal Pradesh.
(Photo: SNS)
Congress has won four while BJP, two seats in the by-elections held in six Assembly Constituencies of Himachal Pradesh.
The elections in the six ACs Dharamshala, Sujanpur, Barsar, Kutlehar, Gagret and Lahaul-Spiti, were held simultaneously on June 1 along with the LS elections.
The by-elections were necessitated in these ACs as it had fallen vacant after the six rebel MLAs were disqualified by the Speaker for defying the party whip to be present in the House to vote in favour of the state government during the cut motion and Budget session.
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Congress managed to retain the four seats Sujanpur, Gagret, Kutlehar and Lahaul and Spiti, after their candidates Captain Ranjeet Singh, Rakesh Kalia, Vivek Sharma and Anuradha Rana won respectively.
Ranjeet Rana bagged 29,529 votes defeating BJP’s Rajinder Rana by a margin of 2,440 votes.
Vivek Sharma secured 35,728 votes defeating BJP’s Devinder Kumar Bhutto who got 30,841 votes.
Anuradha Rana got 9,414 votes defeating nearest rival Ram Lal Markanda (Independent) by 1,960 votes. Ravi Thakur of BJP got 3,049 votes.
Rakesh Kalia (35,768 votes) won by a margin of 8,487, defeating BJP candidate Chaitanya Sharma (27,281).
Sudhir Sharma bagging 28,066 votes won from Dharamshala AC by 5,526 votes defeating Congress candidate Devinder Singh Jaggi who got 22,540 votes.
In Barsar AC, BJP candidate Inder Dutt Lakhanpal (33,086 votes) defeated Subhash Chand by 2,125 votes.
These by-elections are significant to the Congress as it continues to strengthen its majority in the State legislative Assembly after the six rebels joined the BJP.
The Congress that was reduced to 34 now continues to enjoy a majority with 38 MLAs, while the BJP has 27 MLAs.
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