Himachal bypolls: CM Sukhu’s wife and Congress candidate Kamlesh Thakur wins Dehra assembly seat.

Dehra was one of the three assembly constituencies in Himachal Pradesh where by-election was held on Wednesday. Congress candidate and Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s wife Kamlesh Thakur has won the assembly bypoll from the Dehra constituency by defeating Hoshyar Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). According to the Election Commission website, Kamlesh Thakur defeated her nearest rival and BJP candidate by 9,399 votes. Thakur polled 32,737 votes while the BJP nominee secured 23,338 votes. “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,” Thakur told reporters in Kangra. Congress candidate Hardeep Singh Bawa was leading from the Nalagarh assembly constituency in Himachal Pradesh by 6,870 votes against BJP’s K.L Thakur in the penultimate round of counting. BJP’s only silver lining could be seen in Hamirpur where its candidate was leading by a slender margin of 1,571 votes in the final round of counting. The Nalagarh assembly constituency had recorded the highest polling at 79.04 per cent, followed by Hamirpur (67.72 per cent) and Dehra (65.42 per cent). The seats fell vacant after the three Independent legislators Hoshyar 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. The BJP fielded all the three former MLAs from their respective seats. Of the 13 assembly seats across seven states that went to polls last week, Congress is leading in five assembly constituencies, while Trinamool Congress (TMC) is leading in all four assembly constituencies in West Bengal. DMK, Congress’s key ally in Tamil Nadu, was leading from the Vikravandi assembly constituency by over 35,000 votes after 10 rounds of counting. Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Mohinder Bhagat won the Jalandhar West assembly seat by defeating his nearest rival and BJP candidate Sheetal Angural by a margin of over 37,325 votes. Congress candidate Surinder Kaur was pushed to third position with 16,757 votes while Shiromani Akali Dal’s Surjit Kaur was a distant fourth with just 1,242 votes.