IANS | 10 Jul, 2024
A voter turnout of over 71 per cent was recorded on Wednesday till 7 pm
in the bypoll for three Assembly constituencies of Himachal Pradesh that were
largely peaceful, officials said.
The Nalagarh constituency recorded the highest polling of 78 per cent,
followed by Hamirpur (67.7 per cent) and Dehra (65.42 per cent), according to
the Election Commission of India.
A voter turnout of 30 per cent was recorded in the first four hours for
three Assembly seats.
As many as 13 candidates are in the fray and the 2.59 lakh voters were
eligible to cast their votes.
The polling is being conducted to fill vacancies created by the
resignation of incumbent members. The ballots will be counted on July 13.
In a straight contest between traditional arch-rivals, the Congress and
the BJP, the stakes are high for Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu with his
wife Kamlesh Thakur making her electoral debut from Dehra in Kangra district.
This constituency was carved out after delimitation in 2010 and the
Congress has never won this seat.
The Chief Minister campaigned aggressively in Dehra, compared to two
other seats, to ensure victory for Kamlesh Thakur, who is in the fray against
BJP nominee Hoshiyar Singh, who won the seat as an Independent candidate in
2022 for the second consecutive time.
To woo the electorate, CM Sukhu said during campaigning that Dehra would
technically get a CM if they elect his wife.
The main Opposition BJP, which has won all four seats in the
just-concluded parliamentary elections, has fielded KL Thakur from Nalagarh and
Ashish Sharma from Hamirpur, where they will be pitted against the Congress'
Hardeep Bawa and Pushpendra Verma, respectively.
Both KL 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.
Earlier, in a major reprieve to the government, the Congress won four
out of six Assembly bypoll on June 4. However, it lost all four Lok Sabha seats
to the BJP for the third time in a row.
With four new legislators, the Congress has stabilised its government in
the state. At present, the Congress has 38 MLAs in the Assembly of 65, while
the BJP has 27.