Assembly bypolls: Close contest on all seats in Himachal, Congress ahead in three

Congress candidates are ahead in three assembly bypolls while two out of six Congress rebels who are now BJP candidates are leading from their respective seats in two assembly segments.

All six seats in the state are seeing a close contest, as per Election Commission trends.

BJP's Sudhir Sharma, a former minister, is ahead by 1,576 votes in Dharamshala while his party candidate from Barsar, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, is leading by 2,043 votes.

BJP candidates from Kutlehar and Gagret, Davinder Bhutto and Chaitanya Sharma, are trailing by 870 votes and 4,676 votes respectively.

BJP leader Rajinder Rana, who had defeated former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal in the 2017 assembly polls, is trailing from Sujanpur seat by 1,131 votes.

Independent candidate and former BJP minister Ram Lal Markanda is leading by 118 votes in Lahaul and Spiti assembly constituency.

The bypolls were held on June 1, simultaneously with elections to the four Lok Sabha seats.

The assembly constituencies where bypolls were held are Sujanpur, Dharamshala, Lahaul & Spiti, Barsar, Gagret and Kutlehar.

Six assembly seats fell vacant following disqualification of Congress rebels for defying the whip to vote in favour of the Congress's state government during the budget.

The six rebel legislators voted for the BJP in Rajya Sabha polls on February 29, later joined BJP and are now contesting on the BJP ticket from their respective assembly segments.

Rajinder Rana (Sujanpur), Sudhir Sharma (Dharamshala), Ravi Thakur (Lahaul and Spiti), Inder Dutt Lakhanpal (Barsar), Chetanya Sharma (Gagret) and Devinder Kumar Bhutto (Kutlehar) had voted in favour of BJP's Rajya Sabha nominee Harsh Mahajan on February 27 along with three Independents.

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