Three newly elected members of the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly took their oaths as legislators on Monday, following the recent by-elections. Congress candidates Kamlesh Thakur, Hardeep Baba Bawa, and BJP candidate Ashish Sharma took their oaths after winning the seats in Dehra, Nalagarh, and Hamirpur, respectively.
Kamlesh Thakur, the Congress candidate and wife of Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, secured the Dehra constituency seat by defeating Hoshyar Singh of the BJP. Hardeep Singh Bawa, another Congress candidate, won the Nalagarh assembly constituency by defeating BJP’s KL Thakur.
The BJP managed to secure only one victory in these by-elections in Hamirpur, where their candidate Ashish Sharma won by a narrow margin.
The vacancies arose after three independent legislators—Hoshiyar Singh from Dehra, Ashish Sharma from Hamirpur, and KL Thakur from Nalagarh—resigned from the assembly on March 22 and joined the BJP the following day. They had previously supported the BJP during the Rajya Sabha elections held on February 27.
Expressing satisfaction with the by-election results, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu stated, “This is the victory of people over money power. The voters have delivered a strong rebuke to the politics of horse-trading and have voted to maintain political integrity in the state. It had been 25 years since a Congress candidate won in Dehra. In Nalagarh, too, the candidate secured a significant victory. The election outcome has sent a clear message to the entire country, and in the future, no candidate of any party in Himachal Pradesh will dare engage in horse trading for the next 50 years.”
The by-poll results were a setback for the BJP, which won only two of the 13 seats contested. The INDIA bloc won 10 seats, and an independent candidate secured one seat across seven states in the country.
(With ANI Inputs)
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