Shimla, Jul 13 (IANS): It is a neck-and-neck contest in Himachal Pradesh’s Dehra assembly bypoll where Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s wife Kamlesh Thakur, who is making her electoral debut, has been leading by a slender margin, as per trends in the sixth round of counting on Saturday.

The Congress has been leading in Hamirpur and Nalagarh seats too.

Kamlesh Thakur is leading by 1,815 votes against the BJP’s nominee Hoshiyar Singh.

Stakes are high for Chief Minister Sukhu with his wife Kamlesh Thakur making her electoral debut from Dehra in Kangra district.

As much as 70.7 per cent voting was recorded in Dehra, Hamirpur and Nalagarh seats on Wednesday.

The polling was conducted to fill vacancies created by the resignation of incumbent members, all Independents, who are now in the fray as BJP nominees.

The Chief Minister had campaigned aggressively in Dehra, compared to two other seats, to ensure victory for Kamlesh Thakur, who is in the fray against Hoshiyar Singh, who won the seat as an Independent candidate in 2022 for the second consecutive time.

The main opposition BJP, which has won all four seats in the just concluded parliamentary elections, has fielded K.L. Thakur from Nalagarh and Ashish Sharma from Hamirpur, where they are pitted against Congress' Hardeep Bawa and Pushpendra Verma, respectively.

Both K.L. Thakur and Ashish Sharma won the seats as Independent candidates in 2022 before joining the BJP earlier this year.

The duo, along with Hoshiyar Singh, resigned from the Assembly in March and joined the BJP.