Shimla, Jul 13 (IANS): In a high-stake bypolls for three Assembly seats in Himachal Pradesh, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Saturday not only ensured a win on two of three seats, including his greenhorn politician wife Kamlesh Thakur’s Dehra constituency that saw neck-and-neck contest but also strengthened his government by securing an absolute majority in the Assembly.
The main rival BJP won one seat -- Hamirpur. The second seat that the Congress won was Nalagarh.
With these wins, the Congress got an absolute majority of 40 seats -- six over than the halfway mark of 34 in the 68-member House. The BJP has increased its tally to 28.
In December 2022, the Congress won 40 seats, while then outgoing BJP was reduced to 25. This has been the second Assembly by-election since 2022. Previously, the bypoll was held for four Assembly seats.
‘The BJP had conspired to oust us from the state. People have now answered,” Sukhu told the media on the party’s win from Dehra and Nalagarh, adding, “Now we again got an absolute majority mark that we had secured in (December) 2022.”
The Congress won the Dehra seat for the first time with its candidate Kamlesh Thakur defeating BJP candidate Hoshiyar Singh by a margin of 9,399 votes. The latter won the seat as an Independent candidate in 2022 for the second consecutive time.
“People of Himachal Pradesh have rejected the ‘Dal-Badal’ (turncoat) politics. People have given direction to the future of politics and have strengthened democracy,” an elated Sukhu added.
Political observers believe the stature of first-time Chief Minister Sukhu within the party has risen by ensuring a win on two seats. Earlier, the Congress won four out of six bypolls on June 4.
Congress greenhorn candidate Harpreet Singh Bawa won from Nalagarh by a margin of over 6,000 and Ashish Sharma of the BJP from Hamirpur by 1,571 votes.
The Chief Minister had campaigned aggressively in Dehra, compared to two other seats, to ensure victory for Kamlesh Thakur.
To woo the electorates, Sukhu during the campaigning had said, “Dehra will technically get a CM (Chief Minister) if they elect his wife.”
Sukhu is a four-time sitting MLA from Nadaun in the adjacent Hamirpur district, while his wife hails from Chamnal village that falls under Dehra.
The BJP, which won all four seats in the just concluded parliamentary elections, had fielded K.L. Thakur from Nalagarh and Ashish Sharma from Hamirpur, where they took on 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. The bypolls were necessitated after the Speaker accepted their resignations on June 4.