Congress hits bypoll boundary, Sukhu says BJP’s Op Lotus has failed in Himachal

For the BJP, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal defeated the Congress’s Subhash Chand in Barsar by 2,125 votes and Sudhir Sharma trounced the Congress’s Devinder Jaggi by 5,526 votes in Dharamshala.

With the four seats, the Congress tally has gone up from 34 to 38. The two new seats has taken the BJP tally up from 25 to 27.

The bypoll victory has come as a shot in the arm of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu whose government had faced rebellion and instability in February this year after the Rajya Sabha election in which six Congress MLAs had voted for the BJP.

Reacting to the results, CM Sukhu said, “BJP’s Operation Lotus has failed in Himachal Pradesh. Indeed, we lost four parliamentary seats but we were assured of our victory in the bypolls on six seats. It is the reason why we fielded our two young MLAs — Vikramaditya Singh and Vinod Sultanpuri — in parliamentary elections. As 97 per cent population of Himachal Pradesh is Hindu and it is a dev pradhan samaj, national issues, including Ram Temple, played a significant role. But the same people favoured Congress in the bypolls.”

Sukhu, who was addressing the media in the presence of Vikramaditya Singh and Pratibha Singh, said, “Vikramaditya Singh was once not ready to contest Lok Sabha election. He was of the view that we would lose Assembly seats. But I personally urged him to contest the parliamentary election.”

Repeating “dhanbal harega, janbal jeetega (people’s mandate will defeat money power)” during campaigning, Sukhu largedly attacked six Congress rebels, especially Rajinder Rana of Sujanur, Sudhir Sharma of Dharamshala and Davinder Kumar Bhutto of Kutlehar, for accepting money for switching sides.

Reading the bypoll verdict which is at odds with the parliamentary poll outcome in the state, Associate Professor Dr Joginder Singh Saklani, who teaches political science at Himachal Pradesh University, said: “The outcome of parliamentary elections and bypolls suggests electors in the state don’t compromise on the national issues but also do not accept aaya rams, gaya rams. The CM managed to convince the electors what happened in the past was not good for the state’s political atmosphere.”

Three Assembly seats — Sujanpur, Gagret and Kutlehar — out of the four won by the Congress fall within Hamirpur parliamentary constituency where the total winning margin of incumbent MP Anurag Thakur came down from 3.99 lakh to 1.72 lakh this time. The Assembly constituencies of CM Sukhu (Nadaun) and Deputy CM Mukesh Agnihotri (Haroli) too are in Hamirpur parliamentary constituency.

An election officer said, “The voter turnout for Assembly bypolls was reported less than the voter turnout for parliamentary elections in at least five Assembly segments. A total of 74.21 per cent electors voted for parliamentary elections while 73.76 electors voted for bypoll candidates in Sujanpur. Barsar recorded 72.29 per cent turnout for parliamentary elections and 71.69 per cent for bypolls. Gagret witnessed 75.56 per cent turnout for parliamentary polls and 75.14 per cent for bypolls. While Kutlehar saw 77.46 per cent turnout for parliamentary polls and 76.89 per cent for bypolls, it was 71.61 per cent turnout for parliamentary election and 71.20 per cent for Assembly bypoll in Dharamshala. Only in Lahaul & Spiti, the voter turnout for bypolls was reported to be one point higher than parliamentary elections.”

The six Assembly seats had fallen vacant following the disqualification of the Congress rebels who had voted for the BJP in Rajya Sabha polls on February 29, and later joined the BJP. Rajinder Rana (Sujanpur), Sudhir Sharma (Dharamshala), Ravi Thakur (Lahaul and Spiti), Inder Dutt Lakhanpal (Barsar), Chaitanya Sharma (Gagret) and Davinder Kumar Bhutto (Kutlehar) had voted in favour of the BJP’s Rajya Sabha nominee Harsh Mahajan on February 27 along with three Independents, resulting in the defeat of Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi.