Himachal votes in last phase of LS polls, also at stake 6 seats vacated by disqualified Cong MLAs

The bypolls to six Assembly seats in Himachal Pradesh, fallen vacant following the disqualification of as many Congress MLAs, will be held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha polls on June 1, state’s Chief Electoral Officer Maneesh Garg said Saturday. The counting of votes will be held on June 4.

Himachal Pradesh has four Lok Sabha seats — Hamirpur, Mandi, Shimla, and Kangra. The BJP had won all four in 2019. Later, former chief minister Virbhadra Singh’s wife Pratibha Singh snatched Mandi from the BJP in a bypoll necessitated in 2021 following the death of then incumbent MP Ram Swaroop Sharma.

Now, pitted against a divided Congress — the ruling party in the state — the BJP has already taken a lead by announcing candidates for two of them.

It has retained Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur from Hamirpur, the Lok Sabha seat he has won four times consecutively, starting with a bypoll in 2008. He has already started canvassing in the constituency that has 17 Assembly segments including those represented by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu (Nadaun) and deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri (Haroli).

Incidentally, five of the six Congress MLAs, who rebelled against the party and were later disqualified, were also elected from Assembly segments in Hamirpur. From Shimla, the BJP has again reposed faith in incumbent MP Suresh Kashyap.

Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur said that BJP will soon declare the names for the Mandi and Kangra Lok Sabha seats.

The Congress, which is battling an internal crisis, is yet to announce the names of its candidates for the Lok Sabha seats as well as the six Assembly constituencies of Dharamshala, Sujanpur, Lahaul and Spiti, Barsar, Gagret and Kutlehar. The seats turned