The BJP has registered a splendid victory in Himachal Pradesh, winning all four Parliament constituencies. This is the first time Himachal voters have broken the tradition of voting for an incumbent government in parliamentary elections.
The much touted Narendra Modi wave put the ruling Congress on the back foot and swept all four seats with comfortable margin.
Surprisingly, most of its ministers, including Chief Minister and Vidhan Sabha speaker, failed to garner lead from their respective assembly segments.
Only two ministers, Industry Minister Mukesh Agnihotri from Haroli and Forest Minister Thakur Singh Bharmouri from Bharmour (ST) assembly segment could secure lead for Congress candidates from their segments.
Virbhadra Singh – Shimla (Rural) (Congress 18,552, BJP 20,286), Cong trailed by 1,734 votes.
Brij Bihari Lal Butail– Palampur (Congress 14,809, BJP 26,235), trailed by 11,426 Votes.
Vidya Stokes – Theog (Congress 17730, BJP 21071), trailed by 3,341 Votes.
Kaul Singh Thakur – Darang (Congress 21020, BJP 22668), trailed by 1,648 Votes.
GS Bali – Nagrota (Congress 17498, BJP 28062), trailed by 10564 Votes.
Sujan Singh Pathania – Fatehpur (Congress 15335, BJP 25234), trailed by 9,899 Votes.
Anil Sharma – Mandi (Congress 17180, BJP 23554), trailed by 6,374 Votes.
Dhani Ram Shandil -Solan (Congress 21156, BJP 26528), trailed by 5,372 Votes.
Sudhir Sharma – Dharamshala (Congress 18237, BJP 26329), trailed by 8,092 Votes.
Prakash Chaudhary – Balh (Congress 20621, BJP 25873), trailed by 5,252 Votes.
Mukesh Agnihotri – Haroli (Congress 30117, BJP 23157), Lead by 6,960 Votes.
Thakur Singh Bharmouri – Bharmour (Congress 21006, BJP 19442), Lead by 1,564 Votes.
Congress, which is ruling in the state, could lead in seven assembly constituencies. i.e Rampur (Congress 25002, BJP 14856) Rohru, (Congress 26843, BJP 13716) Seraj (Congress 22673, BJP 21182) Kinnaur (Congress 18844, BJP 16209), Lahaul-Spiti (Congress 8127, BJP 5333), Shillai (Congress 20037, BJP 17616) and Renuka Ji (Congress 19160, BJP 18281) and apart from that BJP swept the state with overwhelming support from electorates.
Congress fails to take lead in any of assembly constituency of Kangra parliamentary, wherefrom electorates had given mandate to form state government in 2012. Congress candidate Chander Kumar even failed to get electorates favour in his own home segment Jawali, wherefrom his son had won election with record margin. He trailed by 1650 votes from the assembly segment.
Himachal Pradesh had polled record 65 percentages. Out of total 48, 10,071 electorates 30, 92,062 exercised their right of franchise in the parliamentary election. The Congress polled 12, 60,477 votes, which is 40.7 percent of total vote polled in the state, whereas BJP lead with 16, 52,995 votes that make 53.3 percent. New entrant Aam Admi Party (AAP) got 63,351 votes (2.0 percent), None of The Above (NOTA) comes fourth with 29156 (0.9 percent), Independent candidate got 28507 votes (0.9 percent), CPM slipped seventh position with 25399 votes (0.8 percent), BSP-22928 (0.7 percent) and SP got only 8,444votes (0.3 percent).
