Congress Wins High Stake Bypolls In Himachal Pradesh, Stabilises Government

The Congress has won 4 out of 6 bypoll seats, after 6 sitting Congress MLAs rebelled and switched to BJP.

Under CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, the Himachal Pradesh government was standing on a precarious terrain. 

(Kamran Akhter/ The Quint)

The Congress party is set to win four of the six seats up for by polls in Himachal Pradesh, giving a new lease of life to the Congress government in the state. There had been a power-tussle in the hill state for four months ever since the BJP won the Rajya Sabha elections in February after six Congress and three Independent MLAs cross-voted in favour of the BJP candidate. The Congress party, which had won the Himachal Pradesh assembly elections in 2022, by securing 40 of the 68 seats in the assembly, fell down to just 34 MLAs after this defection. However, the overall assembly strength also changed as the six seats held by these MLAs were declared vacant, bringing down the effective strength of the House from 68 to 62. Since then, the ruling party was standing on a precarious terrain.

The by-polls for these six seats were held on 1 June, and the counting on 4 June. With the Congress' victory on four of the six by poll seats, the government is expected to retain stability in the state.

This comes alongside the Lok Sabha election results, where the Congress party is leading in close to 100 seats, as per the latest trends. Despite doing well in the assembly by polls in the state, the Congress is set to lose all four Lok Sabha seats in Himachal Pradesh.

Background To Himachal Pradesh Crisis

Six assembly seats fell vacant in Himachal Pradesh earlier this year, following the disqualification of Congress rebels for defying the whip to vote in favor of the Congress's state government during the budget. Subsequently, the six rebel MLAs had voted for the BJP in Rajya Sabha polls on February 29, later joining the BJP. The cross-voting led to BJP’s Harsh Mahajan winning the Rajya Sabha seat, against Congress’ Abhishek Manu Singhvi. Interestingly, in the by polls for the six seats, the BJP fielded the same six rebel MLAs on their ticket. Moreover, the three independent MLAs who had switched to BJP, had their resignations accepted on the evening of June 3, bringing down the house strength further to 59.

The Congress party is set to win in Lahaul and Spiti, Sujanpur, Garget and Kutlehar. The BJP candidates (previously with the Congress), are set to win on two seats: Dharmshala and Barsar.  
 
Congress’ Anuradha Rana (Lahaul and Spiti), Captain Ranjit Singh (Sujanpur), Rakesh Kaila (Garket), and Vivek Sharma (Kutlehar) are leading comfortably and set to join the assembly. BJP’s Sudhir Sharma (Dharmshala) and Inder Dutt (Barsar) are likely to win as well.  With these wins, the Congress would go up to 38 in the assembly, and the BJP would have 27 members.