Congress leaders hail victories in Dehra, Nalagarh in Himachal; BJP bags Hamirpur seat

Shimla (Himachal Pradesh) [India], July 14 (ANI): In a boost for the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh, the party won two of the three seats on which bypolls were held in the state, taking the party's strength in the 68-member state assembly to 40, the number it had before a political crisis erupted in the state due to cross-voting in the Rajya Sabha polls.
The Congress won the Dehra and Nalagarh seats, while the BJP won the Hamirpur seat.
The bye-elections were held due to the resignation of three independent MLAs who later joined the BJP.
Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu's wife, Kamlesh Thakur, won from Dehra. This is the first time the Congress has won the seat since it was created in 2012 after delimitation.
Kamlesh Thakur clinched victory by a margin of 9,399 votes. She polled 32,737 votes against the BJP's Hoshiyar Singh, who received 23,338 votes. Hoshiyar Singh had resigned as an independent candidate and joined the BJP.
Congress' Hardeeep Singh Bawa won from Nalagarh in Solan district.
The BJP, on the other hand, won in Hamirpur, the home district of Chief Minister Sukhu, with its candidate Ashish Sharma prevailing over the Congress nominee by a margin of 1571 votes.
The bypolls were necessitated following the resignation of three independent MLAs who subsequently joined the BJP earlier this year.
The Congress had earlier won four of six seats in the bypolls held with the Lok Sabha polls in Himachal Pradesh.
The six bypolls were necessitated after six Congress MLAs cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha bypolls. They later joined the BJP.
Political analysts said that the BJP's decision to field former independent MLAs as its candidates, disregarding its own constituency stalwarts, may have contributed to it losing two seats.
Congress leaders, including state party president Pratibha Singh, hailed the victories as a reaffirmation of the party's ideology and a testament to the people's trust in the Congress-led state government.
With 40 seats in the assembly, Congress has increased its comfort margin in the hill state and battled the political challenge it faced following cross-voting in Rajya Sabha polls. (ANI)