Cong wins 2 of 3 seats including CM’s wife Kamlesh Thakur

Shimla: In a big shot in his arm, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, once again proved his mettle to keep the BJP out of power in Himachal Pradesh.

In the bypoll for three Assembly constituencies, the Congress won two seats including Dehra where his wife Kamlesh Thakur registered an impressive victory over the BJP candidate Hoshiar Singh, a two-time former independent MLA.

It’s after more than two decades, the Congress has won Dehra Assembly seats which either had remained with the BJP successively or Independent Hoshiar Singh repeating his win.

Dehra being part of politically significant Kangra district could be Sukhu’s best score over the opposition BJP especially View of party’s converted plans to oust the Congress from the power.

The Congress tally in the 68-member House has once again risen to 40—the original numbers when Sukhu had formed the government in December 2022, but had later lost six MLAs to disqualification by the Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania for defying the Congress whip in the House.

Earlier to this all six rebels had cross voted for the BJP in the Rajya Sabha polls held on February 27 thereby facilitating the BJP victory over party candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

In the bypoll later held, the Congress won four out of six Assembly seats .This gave a clear stability to Sukhu government facing the BJP threat to its survival on numbers in the House.

“Today, I can say it’s a victory for the people who rejected the BJP’s dirty tricks to topple an elected government on the basis of money power. People have backed Janbal (Public power) over money power” said the Chief Minister, auditing that by fielding Kamlesh Thakur, his wife, he has put everything at stake, to see that the Congress wins this seat.

The strength of the Congress has risen to 40 .

The bypoll was necessitated after three Independent MLAs, namely Hoshiyar Singh (Dehra), Ashish Sharma (Hamirpur), and K.L. Thakur( Nalagarh), resigned on March 22 . Three of them joined the BJP a day later. They had also voted by the BJP candidate in Rajya Sabha alongwith six Congress rebels.

Hoshiyar Singh faced an embarrassing defeat at the hands of Kamlesh Thakur-the first time candidate .She has won the seat by around 9,400 votes.

“The Congress party has won the seat after a wait of 25 long years” said Naresh Chauhan, CM’s media advisor.

A spokesperson of Election department stated here today that in the bye-polls held for the three Assembly constituencies, two seats viz: Dehra and Nalagarh Assembly Constituencies (AC) were bagged by the candidates from Indian National Congress (INC) while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate was declared winner from the Hamirpur AC.

Ashish Sharma of BJP defeated his nearest rival of Congress by 1571 votes.