CHANDIGARH: With little more than a year left for the Himachal Pradesh elections, the ruling BJP is left with a lot to ponder given the drubbing in the bypolls to all the three Assembly segments and one Lok Sabha seat.
The most upsetting result for the BJP was the Mandi Lok Sabha seat, the home district of Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur from where the Congress candidate won by a margin of 8,766 votes. Spread across six districts, Mandi is the largest parliamentary seat in India. It is the home turf of Thakur. Out of the ten Assembly segments falling in this district, the saffron party candidate lead in eight while congress lead in two Assembly seats. As from Thakur’s own assembly seat of Seraj, the BJP candidate lead by 21,000 votes. In the rest seven assembly seats, Congress candidate Pratibha Singh won.
Fatehpur was retained by the Congress as Bhawani Singh Pathania defeated Baldev Thakur of the BJP by 5,789 votes. Arki was also retained with the Congress winning by 3,126 votes. In Jubbal-Kotkhai Assembly seat, the Congress won by 6,103 votes. The rival was a BJP rebel as he was not given the ticket by the saffron party. BJP candidate Neelam Sarek came third polling just 2,584 votes.
Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said he humbly accepted the verdict given by the people in the by-elections to one Lok Sabha seat and three assembly constituencies of the State. He said that these results were not according to the party’s expectations and that the BJP lost Mandi Parliamentary seat by a narrow margin.
“We will try to meet the expectations and aspirations of the people of the state and will work with renewed zeal and dedication to perform better in the assembly elections,” Thakur said. The party will introspect the causes which led to its defeat and formulate a strategy to overcome its shortcomings and do everything possible to ensure victory, the Himachal chief minister asserted.