Despite drubbing in all four Lok Sabha (LS) seats in the state, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said the performance of Congress has improved this time as compared to that of the previous elections.

He was talking to media persons on Tuesday after the results wherein the BJP won all the four LS seats. In the by-elections in six Assembly constituencies Congress won four, while the BJP won two seats.

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He thanked the people of the state for participating in the festival of democracy and said the Lok Sabha election and by-election in the six Assembly Constituencies this time was not ordinary, it was special elections.

“We raised various issues in the court of the people. Our party had taken a decision to contest these elections with enthusiasm and fought it like a battle,” he said.

The party had fielded our national leader Anand Sharma, Public Works Department Vikramaditya Singh, MLA Vinod Sultanpuri and former MLA Satpal Singh Raizada to contest the LS elections, he said, adding that in all the seats it was a good contest and in two of the PCs we put up a tough fight.

“However, we could not win the LS seats as these elections are fought more on national issues than the local ones,” he said.

Sukhu was upbeat about the performance of Congress in the by-elections that witnessed the retaining of four seats out of the six ACs.

The public has given a befitting reply to the BJP for trying to topple the elected government by buying the MLAs who were former Congress rebels who cross-voted and supported BJP candidates in the Rajya Sabha elections and later joined BJP and contested all the ACs in the by-elections, he claimed.

“It is the support of the people to Congress where ‘Dhan Bal’ (people’s power) has defeated ‘Dhan Bal’ (money power),” said Sukhu, claiming that the BJp’s conspiracy of toppling the state government has failed.

“In the 2019 LS elections, Congress vote share was 27.53 per cent and BJP’s was 67.9 per cent. This time it is 41.67 per cent for Congress and 56.44 per cent for BJP, which shows an improvement of 14 per cent vote share of Congress. The winning margin also shrunk this time,” said the chief minister, adding that the Congress government has only completed 15 months of its tenure and this is indicative of the progressive performance of the state government.

He contributed multiple factors to the BJP’s victory in the LS elections include elections fought on national issues, Ram Mandir, Modi factor, and regional factors.