HP bypolls: Cong wins Mandi Lok Sabha, all 3 Assembly seats
Shimla: The ruling BJP on Tuesday suffered a big jolt in the four bypolls in Himachal Pradesh losing all the seats to the Congress, which managed to register remarkable victory in the Mandi Parliamentary seat and three Assembly constituencies, one of these being Jubbal-Kotkhai in Shimla district.
The results of the by-elections held for one Lok Sabha seat and three Assembly Constituencies were declared on Tuesday.
Congress candidate Pratibha Singh, wife of former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, emerged a most powerful woman winning Mandi Parliamentary constituency in the home district of Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur. She was polled 3,69,565 votes against BJP's Brigadier Khushal Chand Thakur–a kargil war veteran, who got 3,62,075 votes.
Though the margin of her victory was not as impressive as her win against high odds like the recent death of her husband Virbhadra Singh and fighting a well entrenched BJP regime.
"I always missed the presence of Raja Sahib (Virbhadra Singh) around me in the campaign but I knew that the BJP was on the losing wicket especially when I sought votes on development done by the earlier Congress government, issue of soaring prices and unemployment," she said.
This was an election fought in absence of Virbhadra Singh but the former Chief Minister remained a factor to influence the voters on so-called development which the BJP was trying to take credit, Pratibha Singh asserted after her victory.
In the by-election for Fatehpur Assembly Constituency, Bhawani Singh Pathania of the Congress and son of former minister Sujan Singh Pathania, was elected by 5897 votes while Arki, an Assembly seat which had fallen vacant due to the demise of Virbhadra Singh, elected Sanjay Awasthi of the Congress by 3277 votes.
In the Jubbal-Kotkhai Assembly, a crucial apple belt, two-time former MLA, Rohit Thakur registered a notable victory by 6103 votes, getting 29,955 votes.
The worst jolt was to the world's biggest party –the BJP, whose candidate Neelam Saraik lost her security deposits as she was polled less than five percent votes as compared to party's rebel Chetan Bragta, who was polled 23,662 votes, which was more than 41 percent. Bragta, son of former BJP minister was refused ticket on the ground being son of Narinder Bragta, the party veteran whose demise had caused the vacancy.
Chief Minister Jai Ram admitted that the poll results are a stunning blow to the party ahead of the next year's Assembly elections.
The issue of prices largely was responsible for the BJP's defeats as also unemployment and lack of development in the state. Demanding the resignation of CM Jai Ram Thakur on "moral grounds", state Congress chief Kuldeep Singh Rathore said Congress had won the "semifinal" and would emerge victorious in the Assembly elections in December next year.
Few in the BJP claimed that wrong distribution of the tickets and over confidence was a factor for showing the party its ground and it could even make the state leadership pay a price for the reversals.
"The BJP is bound to go in the 2022 polls, which will bring the Congress back to power with a thumping majority. The so-called double engine government (Centre + state) has ruined the poor, middle men", alleged Mukesh Agnihotri, Leader of Opposition.
