TNR Desk
The Election Commission will issue the notification for election to four Lok Sabha seats and byelections to six Assembly constituencies in Himachal Pradesh on Tuesday (May 7, 2024). With this, the candidates will be able to file their nomination papers for the elections scheduled on June 1.
The notification will be issued by Himachal Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Maneesh Garg even as the schedule for the electoral process for the last phase of elections was announced by the Election Commission at the time of the declaration of the poll schedule. Following is the schedule for Himachal:
Last date of nomination: May 14, 2024
Scrutiny of nomination papers: May 15, 2024
Last date for withdrawal of name: May 17, 2024
Voting date: June 1, 2024
Counting of votes: June 4, 2024
There are four parliamentary seats in Himachal Pradesh: Shimla (SC), Hamirpur, Kangra and Mandi. BJP candidate Suresh Kashyap is contesting from Shimla seat against Congress candidate Vinod Sultanpuri and BSP candidate Anil Kumar. From Hamirpur, BJP candidate Anurag Thakur will face Congress’s Satpal Singh Raizada and BSP candidate Hemraj.
From Mandi, BJP candidate Kangana Ranaut will face Congress’ Vikramaditya Singh and BSP’s Prakash Chand Bhardwaj. BJP candidate Rajeev Bhardwaj from Kangra will face Congress’ Anand Sharma and BSP’s Rekha Rani.
The byelections are also to be held on six Assembly seats of Himachal Pradesh, which are Barsar, Lahaul-Spiti, Dharamshala, Kutlehar, Sujanpur and Gagret. The bypolls were necessitated after the disqualification of the Congress MLAs of these six seats for violating the party’s whip on voting for the passage of the budget.
All these six MLAs had crossvoted for the BJP during the Rajya Sabha election for the lone seat from Himachal on February 27, leading to the defeat of Congress nominee Abhishek Manu Singhvi while BJP’s Harsh Mahajan won. Three Independent MLAs too have resigned, but their resignations are yet to be accepted by the Assembly Speaker.
