The Newz Radar Network
With more than three-year tenure of the ruling Congress still remaining in Himachal Pradesh and the government having announced big-ticket projects for Dehra, the constituency’s intelligent vote. rs on Saturday (July 13, 2024) elected Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s wife Kamlesh Thakur as their MLA.
Two-term Independent MLA Hoshyar Singh, who had resigned from the Vidhan Sabha recently and was seeking re-election on the BJP ticket, was shown the door. Dehra, a predominantly backward portion of Kangra district, has always been a BJP bastion and it’s after around 25 years that a Congress candidate has won from here.
In her campaign, Kamlesh had repeatedly mentioned in Pahari dialect ‘main tusan di dhiyan’ (I am your daughter). He has won the Dehra seat with more than nine thousand votes.
Kamlesh defeated Hoshyar Singh by 9,399 votes. She was lagging behind in the first four rounds of counting, but after that she took the lead. She got 32,737 votes while BJP’s Hoshyar got 23,338 votes. The security deposit of three other independent candidates— Sulekha Chaudhary (167 votes), Advocate Sanjay Sharma (43 votes) and Arun Ankesh Syal (65 votes) was forfeited.
It was Kamlesh’s debut Assembly election, the polling having been conducted on July 10 and the counting of votes done on July 13.
She was locked in a battle of prestige, the result likely to be seen as a referendum on the performance of her husband’s 18-month-old Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu-led Congress government.
Kamlesh belongs to Dehra constituency in Kangra district and is married in neighbouring Nadaun, the seat represented in the Assembly by the first-term Chief Minister Sukhu. All eyes, thus, were on the crucial Assembly bypoll in Dehra.
