No surprise in Himachal, the hills are now saffron
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) returned to power in Himachal Pradesh with an emphatic win over Congress but the party will have to look for a chief minister as its candidate for the post Prem Kumar Dhumal lost.
The party is set to win 44 in the state assembly, coming close to two-thirds majority in the 68-member house. The Congress is trailing with 21 seats while the Communist Party of India (Marxist) took one seat and the remaining two went to independents.
The 2017 Himachal polls will be remembered for the loss of stalwarts, except chief minister Virbhadra Singh, who won by over 6,000 votes, and the victory of young turks.
Apart from Dhumal, state BJP chief Satbir Satti from Una and Kullu candidate Maheshwar Singh, a former Rajya Sabha member, lost. The Congress had a long list of senior leaders who lost, including Sudhir Sharma, Kaul Singh Thakur, Chander Kumar and Gangu Ram Mushafir. Transport minister GS Bali, who was considered as a replacement for Singh in the Congress,
SHIMLA:
was trailing.
A consolation for Congress was that several of its next-generation leaders, such as Virbhadhra Singh’s son Vikramaditya Singh, son of former speaker Ashish Bhutail and Anirudh Singh, won.
A shattered Dhumal termed the BJP’s win a “great victory” for the party, while refusing to discuss his loss. Senior BJP leaders, however, rushed to Delhi to discuss the name of the probable chief minister candidate. In a few days, the party will announce its chief minister in the state capital Shimla.
Though the Congress and the BJP have shared power alternately in the state since 1985, this election was a contest between two war horses from the state — chief minister Virbhadra Singh (83) and Dhumal (73).
The BJP pronounced the latter as its chief ministerial candidate only a few days before Himachal Pradesh went to the polls on November 9.
The BJP had initially projected