BJP returns to power as its CM face loses seat
EMPHATIC WIN Even as support for the saffron party increased in the hill state, PK Dhumal lost from Sujanpur constituency; Nadda and Jairam Thakur now frontrunners for the top spot
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday returned to power in Himachal Pradesh with an emphatic triumph, tearing down the Congress.
The BJP, which won 44 of the 68 seats in the state assembly, has come within touching distance of a two-thirds majority.
The Congress trailed with 21 seats while the Communist Party of India (Marxist) took one seat and the remaining two went to Independents.
Despite its victory, the BJP was left red-faced as its chief ministerial candidate, Prem Kumar Dhumal, lost his seat. Dhumal trailed his Congress rival and one-time protege, Rajinder Rana, in Sujanpur constituency throughout the counting.
“It is a great victory for the party. The BJP’s victory is more important for me than my own personal defeat,” a shattered Dhumal said, refusing to speak on his loss.
The two-time former CM had reluctantly agreed to shift from Hamirpur, the seat he represented in the previous assembly, to Sujanpur assembly segment.
With Dhumal’s defeat, newly elected Seraj legislator, Jairam Thakur, and Union health minister, Jagat Parkash Nadda, have emerged as frontrunners for the chief minister’s post.
A former state BJP chief, Thakur, who has won his seat five straight times, is learnt to have been summoned to Delhi by the BJP central leadership. Another factor that may weigh in his favour is that the party has swept the Mandi district from where he hails.
SHIMLA: WITH DHUMAL’S DEFEAT, SERAJ LEGISLATOR, JAIRAM THAKUR, AND UNION HEALTH
MINISTER, JP NADDA, HAVE EMERGED AS FRONTRUNNERS FOR THE CM’S POST
Considered close to BJP president Amit Shah, Nadda was in the running for the CM’s post from the start and till the time the party named Dhumal. His name has again started doing the rounds. A Rajya Sabha MP, he did not contest the state elections.
Another setback for the BJP is that its state unit chief, Satpal Singh Satti, lost from Una assembly constituency.
The two bigwigs fell despite a groundswell of support for the party in the state. Its vote share jumped by an impressive 10 percentage points, going up to 48.6% from 38.47% in the 2012 assembly elections.
As for Congress, chief minister Virbhadra Singh and his son Vikramaditya, a first-time candidate, won their seats.
Battling factionalism and antiincumbency, the Congress lost less than 1% from its vote share of 42.81% in 2012 but many of its ministers and chief parliamentary secretaries, including Kaul Singh Thakur, Thakur Singh Bharmouri and Sudhir Sharma, lost their seats.
The Himachal defeat is another setback for the Congress, which has been losing election after election since the 2014 Lok Sabha debacle, with the exception of the Punjab assembly polls in March this year. The BJP, on the other hand, has continued its victory march and expanded its political footprint with a little more than a year to go for the general elections.