The people of Himachal Pradesh have once again proved their political shrewdness by giving clear and different verdicts in Lok Sabha elections and the Assembly by-polls.
While the BJP swept the Lok Sabha polls in Himachal, winning all four seats of Kangra, Hamirpur, Shimla (Reserved), and Mandi with reasonable margins for the third time in a row after 2014 and 2019, the people of Himachal chose to strengthen the Congress government in state by defeating BJP on four out of six Assembly seats, which went to by-polls after Congress rebels were disqualified.
In Lok Sabha polls, Anurag Thakur won the election for the fifth time in a row from Hamirpur. He defeated Satpal Raizada of Congress by a margin of 1.82 lakh. What is surprising is that Anurag Thakur led in the Assembly constituencies, where the Congress party won the by-polls in Hamirpur and Una.
BJP's Rajeev Bhardwaj defeated former Union minister of Congress, Anand Sharma in Kangra by the highest margin of 2.51 lakh in the state. Sharma lost the poll due to the outsider tag as he is from Shimla district.
In Shimla Parliamentary constituency, sitting MP, Suresh Kashyap of BJP won the poll from Congress nominee, Vinod Sultanpuri by a margin of 91,451 votes.
BJP nominee Kangana Ranaut, who made Mandi Parliamentary the hot seat in the entire poll, defeated state Congress minister Vikramaditya Singh by a margin of 74,755 votes.
State BJP Chief, Dr Rajiv Bindal termed it a historic win of the BJP in Lok Sabha, where it swept the polls for the third time in a row.
"It's the victory of national BJP leadership- Narendra Modi and Jagat Prakash Nadda and of all the party workers," he said.
Bindal said the BJP got the lead in 61 out of 68 Assembly segments in the state in Lok Sabha polls.
The Congress won four Assembly seats in the by-poll- Lahaul Spiti, Sujanpur, Kutlehar, and Gagret, while the BJP got Dharamshala and Badsar.
With this Congress now has a strength of 38 and BJP 27 in the state Assembly having 65 members at present. The state Assembly has 68 members in all, out of which three Independent MLAs have resigned to side with BJP. The three segments vacated by them- Dehra, Hamirpur, and Nalagarh.
"I thank the people of Himachal for giving us four seats in by-polls out of six. They have rejected the politics of rebels who joined the BJP within 12 months of rule," said Chief Minister, Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.
He said the Congress lost the Lok Sabha seats as the people voted for national issues. But in the state, people voted for the Congress government, he said.
The Chief Minister had particularly focussed on by-polls in the state and the Lok Sabha polls were more or less left to ministers, MLAs, and the candidates.
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