The gamble of three Independent MLAs – Hoshiyar Singh (Dehra) KL Thakur ( Nalagarh) and Ashish Sharma (Hamirpur) to re-contest the Assembly by-polls on BJP tickets after resigning from the Assembly, proved costly as Hoshiyar Singh and KL Thakur lost the election and only Ashish Sharma was able to retain Hamirpur Assembly seat.
CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s wife Congress candidate Kamelsh Thakur defeated BJP candidate Hoshiyar Singh in Dehra by a margin of 9399 votes.
In Nalagarh Assembly constituency Congress candidate Hardeep Singh Bawa defeated BJP candidate KL Thakur by 8990 votes.
BJP candidate Ashish Sharma managed to retain Hamirpur constituency by defeating Congress candidate Pushpender Verma by 1571 votes.
The Congress win on two of the three seats have further consolidated the position of the CM and Congress party in HP Vidhan Sabha as strength of Congress has again gone to 40 in the house ; the number of seats which the party had won in the 2022 Assembly election.
More so, since 9 (six Congress rebel MLAs) and three Independent MLAs had deserted the Congress during Rajya Sabha election on February 27.
The Rajya Sabha election in the state had created a crisis as both Congress and BJP candidates had polled equal numbers of 34 votes each, reducing the strength of Congress MLAs from 40 to 34 .
The Congress had won four Assembly seats in the last by-polls out of six seats which went to polls along with Parliament election in the state on June 1.
The win in Dehra and Nalagarh have come as a big relief to CM after the party had lost all four parliament seats to BJP in the last parliament election.
The position of the CM has been strengthened further as his wife has registered a convincing win in Dehra.
The results of by-polls are a big jolt to the opposition BJP as its leaders were predicting the fall of the Congress government after the election.
This would be for the first time in the history of Himachal as there would be no Independent MLA in HP Vidhan Sabha.
