Assembly bypolls: BJP leads in 3 of 6 seats in Himachal

Shimla, Jun 4 (PTI) Three out of six Congress rebels who are now BJP candidates for the assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh are ahead of their rivals, as per trends the Election Commission.

Counting of votes for assembly bypolls are being held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha elections.

BJP's Sudhir Sharma, a former minister, is ahead by 615 votes in Dharamshala, while party candidate from Kutlehar, Davinder Bhutto, is leading by 397 votes.

BJP candidate from Barsar, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, is leading by 1,031 votes, and independent candidate and former BJP minister Ram Lal Markanda is leading by 1,354 votes in Lahaul and Spiti assembly constituency.

BJP leader Rajinder Rana, who had defeated former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal in 2017 assembly polls, is trailing from Sujanpur by 1,351 votes and the BJP's Chetanya Sharma(BJP) from Gagret is trailing by 851 votes.

The bypolls were held on June 1, simultaneously with elections to the four Lok Sabha seats. The assembly constituencies where bypolls were held are Sujanpur, Dharamshala, Lahaul & Spiti, Barsar, Gagret and Kutlehar.

Six assembly seats fell vacant following disqualification of Congress rebels for defying the whip to vote in favour of the Congress's state government during the budget.

The six rebel legislators voted for the BJP in Rajya Sabha polls on February 29, later joined BJP and are now contesting on the BJP ticket from their respective assembly segments.

Rajinder Rana (Sujanpur), Sudhir Sharma (Dharamshala), Ravi Thakur (Lahaul and Spiti), Inder Dutt Lakhanpal (Barsar), Chetanya Sharma (Gagret) and Devinder Kumar Bhutto (Kutlehar) had voted in favour of BJP's Rajya Sabha nominee Harsh Mahajan on February 27 along with three Independents. PTI