The Newz Radar Network
The ruling Congress in Himachal Pradesh has won three of the six Assembly seats where byelections were held on June 1 and the counting took place on Tuesday (June 4, 2024) while its candidate is leading in one constituency. In the remaining two segments, BJP candidates are ahead.
Congress candidate Ranjit Rana has won from Sujanpur in Hamirpur, defeating BJP rival Rajinder Rana by 2,174 votes. In Gagret, BJP’s Chaitanya Sharma has lost to Congress nominee Rakesh Kalia by 7,970 votes. The third seat won by the Congress is Lahaul-Spiti where Anuradha Rana defeated her nearest rival Ram Lal Markanda by 1,786 votes. BJP candidate Ravi Thakur was relegated to the third position. In Kutlehar, the Congress was expected to win as its candidate Vivek Sharma was leading by 4,272 votes after the 18th of the 20 rounds.
The BJP has been maintaining its lead in Dharamshala and Barsar. In Barsar, BJP’s Inder Dutt Lakhanpal appears to have attained an assailable lead of 2,441 votes against Subhash Chand of the Congress with 11 of the 12 rounds of counting over. In Dharamshala too, BJP’s Sudhir Sharma is ahead by 4,673 votes against Devinder Singh Jaggi of the Congress after the eighth of the 10 rounds.
The byelections to the six Assembly seats were necessitated after the disqualification of the sitting Congress MLAs by the Assembly Speaker for violating a party whip on voting during the budget session. All the six MLAs subsequently joined the BJP, which fielded them in the byelections.
Sujanpur and Dharamshala were considered the hot seats as Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu had accused Rajinder Rana and Sudhir of being the masterminds of the conspiracy to topple the Congress regime.
Congress to retain 4 of 6 seats in Himachal byelections, but Sukhu may lose Dharamshala battle to Sudhir
