Congress wins four of six seats in Himachal assembly bypolls

In a boost for the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh the party won four of the six assembly bypolls on TuesdayThe results are a boost for Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu government which was facing a threat the following crossvoting by six party MLAs in the Rajya Sabha bypollsThe MLAs who were disqualified from the assembly later joined the BJP The disqualification led to the bypoll on the six seatsHimachal Pradesh assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania on Monday accepted the resignation of three Independent MLAs who had also voted in favour of the BJP candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections along with rebel Congress MLAs Congress candidate Abishek Manu Singhvi lost the Rajya Sabha polls causing an embarrassment to the CongressThe Congress has 34 MLAs in the assembly and with four of its candidates winning the bypolls the partys strength now stands at 38 in the 68member House With three vacancies the effective strength of the assembly is 65 and majority mark is 33In the 2022 assembly polls Congress had won 40 seats while the BJP got 25BJP candidate Sudhir Sharma secured 28066 votes in Dharamshala assembly constituency and defeated his nearest rival Devender Singh Jaggi of Congress who got 22540 votesIndependent candidate Rakesh Chaudhary got 10770 while Satish Kumar got 422Congress candidate from LahaulSpiti Anuradha Rana secured 9414 votes and defeated her nearest rival independent candidate Ram Lal Markanda who got 7454 votes BJP candidate Ravi Thakur got 3049 votesCaptain Ranjit Singh Rana Congress candidate from Sujanpur secured 29529 votes and defeated his nearest rival BJPs Rajender Singh Rana who got 27089 votes Nationalist Congress Partys Ravinder Singh Dogra got 334 votes Independent candidates Anil Rana got 134 votes Sher Singh 71 and Rajesh Kumar got 46 votesCongress candidate from Kutlehar Vivek Sharma secured 35728 votes and defeated his nearest rival BJPs Devender Kumar Bhutto who got 30841 votesIndependent candidates Chanchal Singh got 290 and Rajiv Sharma got 228 votes respectivelyIn Gagret Congress candidate Rakesh Kalia secured 35768 votes and defeated his nearest rival BJPs Chaitanya Sharma who got 27281 votes Independent candidates Amit Vashisht Ashok Sonkhala and Manohar Lal Sharma got 570 323 and 288 votes respectivelyBJPs Inder Dutt Lakhanpal from Barsar got 33086 votes and defeated his nearest rival Subhash Chand of Congress who got 30961 votes Independent candidate Vishal Kumar got 452Voting for the six assembly seats in Himachal Pradesh was held in the seventh and final phase on June 1This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever