The ruling Congress in Himachal Pradesh finally restored the number of 40 in the state Assembly with the party wresting two of the three Assembly seats as per the results of by-polls declared today.
The by-polls were held on July 10.
As per a release by the Election Commission, the Congress won two seats, including Nalagarh and Dehra, where Chief Minister, Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's wife Kamlesh Thakur defeated BJP nominee Hoshyar Singh by 9399 votes. The BJP won the Hamirpur Assembly segment with Ashish Sharma defeating Congress candidate Dr Pushpinder Verma by a margin of 1517 votes.
In Nalagarh, Congress party's Hardeep Singh Bawa defeated BJP's KL Thakur by 8,991 votes.
The by-polls were peaceful but generated much interest in HP politics as the three seats were vacated by the Independent MLAs, Hoshyar Singh ( Dehra), Ashish Sharma ( Hamirpur), and KL Thakur ( Nalagarh), who had resigned from the Assembly and contested on BJP tickets. Two out of three Independents lost the election.
In the six by-polls earlier, which were held due to the disqualification of Congress rebels who later contested on BJP tickets, four were won by the Congress party.
Congress, which had slipped from 40 to 34 in February end after the rebellion, has now restored 40 seats, winning six out of nine Assembly by-polls in June and July.
The BJP, which had won 25 seats in the 2022 Assembly polls, is now up by three and is at 28 in the 68-member Assembly. There are no independents now.
This restores CM's prestige in Congress and is likely to silence the voices of dissent within the ruling party.
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