Chandigarh: In a major political setback in the Himachal Pradesh, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost two out of three assembly segments that went to the by-polls here on July 13.
With this, the 68-member state assembly house now has 40 MLAs of the ruling Congress and 28 of the BJP.
This places chief minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu in a comfortable position to hold on to power for the remaining years of his three-year tenure.
In March this year, the Sukhu government – which came to power in the 2022 assembly polls with a handsome majority – was caught in serious political upheaval after six party MLAs rebelled against the government during the Rajya Sabha polls.
Later, three independent MLAs too withdrew their support from Sukhu government, putting its future in jeopardy.
Looking to push the Congress government out, BJP inducted these nine MLAs into the party with the hope that they would win their seats again in a by-poll and help it engineer the fall of Sukhu government. BJP’s tactics have been labelled ‘operation lotus’ – the lotus is the BJP’s election symbol – by Congress.
The by-poll was necessitated after six Congress MLAs lost their membership following their disqualification from state assembly while three independents resigned from their seat to fight again on a BJP symbol.
But BJP’s plan did not work.
Nalagarh: Congress’s newly elected MLA Hardeep Singh Bawa. Photo: By arrangement.
Congress won four of the six assembly by-poll segments where voting was held during the Lok Sabha polls, and has now won two of the three remaining seats in by-polls held on July 10.
Reacting after the party’s victory here on July 13, CM Sukhwinder said the people of Himachal have defeated money power and political conspiracy of BJP by supporting people power. “This is the victory of the people. I express my gratitude to the god-like people of Devbhoomi,” he added.
Former BJP chief minister Jairam Thakur on the other hand conceded defeat, saying that the party would definitely reflect on where it fell short in these elections.
Sukhu’s wife is an MLA now
The stakes were high for Sukhu since his wife Kamlesh Thakur was contesting from Dehra assembly constituency. Hamirpur and Nalagarh were other two assembly segments where by-poll elections were held.
In the initial rounds of counting, Kamlesh Thakur was trailing behind BJP’s Hoshyar Singh. But in the end, she defeated the BJP candidate by a handsome margin of 9,399 votes.
On the other hand, Congress’s Hardeep Singh Bawa defeated BJP’s K.L. Thakur in Nalagarh seat by 9,000 votes, in what was once a bastion of the saffron party.
Hamirpur: BJP winning candidate Ashish Sharma. Photo: By arrangement.
The only saving grace of the party was winning from Hamirpur, stronghold of former Union minister Anurag Thakur. There too, the victory margin of BJP candidate Ashish Sharma was not more than 1,500 votes. At one time, he was trailing but galloped ahead in the last two rounds of counting.
Poll observers in Himachal are of the view that Sukhu successfully managed to tide over the political crisis triggered by party rebels and further exploited by BJP.
But he will still have to tread cautiously since opposition to Sukhu’s leadership within the party is not fully gone.
