HP bypolls: CM's wife and Cong candidate Kamlesh trailing in Dehra; party in lead in Hamirpur

Shimla: Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's wife and Congress candidate Kamlesh Thakur for the Dehra assembly bypoll was trailing by 360 votes against the BJP's nominee for the seat on Saturday, officials said.

Dehra was one of the three assembly constituencies in the state where by-election was held on Wednesday. The others being Hamirpur and Nalagarh.

BJP's Hoshiyar Singh was ahead of Kamlesh Takhur after two rounds of counting of votes that began at 8 am, the officials said.

In the Hamirpur assembly seat, Congress' Pushpinder Verma was ahead by 200 votes against his nearest rival and BJP candidate Ashish Sharma after the first round of counting, the officials said.

Thirteen candidates were in the fray from the three seats.

The Nalagarh assembly constituency had recorded the highest polling at 79.04 per cent, followed by Hamirpur (67.72 per cent) and Dehra (65.42 per cent).

The overall voting percentage of the three bypolls was 71 per cent, according to the data of the state election department.

The seats fell vacant after the three Independent legislators Singh (Dehra), Sharma (Hamirpur) and K L Thakur (Nalagarh), who had voted in favour of the BJP in the Rajya Sabha polls held on February 27, resigned from the state assembly on March 22 and joined the party the next day.

Their resignations, however, were accepted by the assembly speaker on June 3, and the seats were declared vacant, necessitating the by-elections.

The BJP fielded all the three former MLAs from their respective seats.

The Congress fielded Kamlesh Thakur from Dehra, repeated its candidate Pushpinder Verma from Hamirpur and gave ticket to five-time Indian National Trade Union Congress president, Himachal Pradesh unit, Hardeep Singh Baba, from Nalagarh.

Though the bypolls will not make much difference in the 68-member House as the Congress has a majority with 38 MLAs. The BJP has 27 members.