Kangra (Himachal Pradesh): Congress candidate and Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's wife, Kamlesh Thakur, has won the assembly by-election from the Dehra constituency by defeating Hoshyar Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Kamlesh Thakur was leading by over 9,000 votes against Hoshyar Singh in the final round of counting on Saturday.
After winning the Dehra assembly by-polls, Kamlesh Thakur, said, "The party leaders and workers worked day and night for this day. I will give all credit to the people who stood by the party throughout. I am proud of the people of Dehra."
Chief Minister Sukhu spoke to ANI on Congress leading on two out of three assembly seats in Himachal Pradesh and said, "People of Himachal gave us 40 seats in 2022. People have given a befitting reply to the kind of poaching that happened in state politics in the past."
"This also gave the message that the people of the state are aware and awake and that such poaching will not work. Three independent MLAs had no reason to resign. They could have simply allied with the BJP, but even they learned their lesson," he said.
Adding further, Sukhu said, "I had put in everything for the Dehra constituency. I want to congratulate Kamlesh Thakur for winning the seat. The reason for fielding my wife from Dehra was to make Congress enter Kangra and increase the MLAs in the valley from 9 to 10. All three seats are strongholds of BJP and we have won two of them. This is a big deal."
Congress workers and supporters celebrated in Dhaliara in Kangra district as the party's candidate won the Dehra Assembly seat.
Congress candidate Hardeep Singh Bawa is leading the Nalagarh assembly constituency in Himachal Pradesh by 6,870 votes against the BJP's KL Thakur in the penultimate round of counting. The only silver lining for the BJP in the assembly by-elections is in Hamirpur, where its candidate Ashish Sharma was leading by a slender margin of 1,571 votes in the final round of counting.
The seats fell vacant after the three independent legislators, Hoshiyar Singh (Dehra), Ashish Sharma (Hamirpur) and K L Thakur (Nalagarh), who had voted in favour of the BJP in the Rajya Sabha polls held on February 27, resigned from the state assembly on March 22 and joined the party the next day.
Meanwhile, in Punjab, the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) Mohinder Bhagat won the Jalandhar assembly seat by 37,325 votes. The TMC is ahead in all four West Bengal seats, with Raiganj candidate Krishna Kalyani taking a significant lead of more than 50,000 votes.
The counting of votes for the 13 legislative assembly seats spread across seven states began on Saturday morning. Polling took place on July 10 for the assembly seats.
—ANI