HP by-polls: Congress candidate from Dharamashala gets less than one-sixth votes, loses deposit

Shimla, Oct 24: The by-polls were held in two seats in Himachal Pradesh on October 21 for which the counting was held today. While seven candidates were in the fray from Dharamashala.

By-elections to Pachhad and Dharamshala Assembly seats were necessitated after sitting BJP MLAs Suresh Kashyap and Kishan Kapoor, respectively, were elected to the Lok Sabha this May.

Congress candidate in Dharmshala Vijay Inder Karan on Thursday lost his security deposit in the bypoll as he failed to get even the required one-sixth of the total votes polled.

Karan could get only 8,212 votes out of the valid 52,485 votes polled. He got 15.64 per cent votes whereas he was required to get 16.67 per cent (one-sixth) of total valid votes to save his deposit.

The main contest was between BJP candidate Vishal Nehria and rebel candidate Rakesh Kumar, who contested as an Independent. Nehria defeated Kumar by a margin of 6,758 votes. A total of seven candidates were in the fray.

All the other five candidates including Karan lost their deposits. The other four candidates who lost their deposits are Parvesh Sharma (2,345 votes), Manohar Lal Dhiman (887 votes), Nisha Katoch (435 votes) and Subash Chand Shukla (368 votes). In the 2017 Assembly elections, Congress candidate lost by a margin of nearly 3000 votes.

The victory margin of Kishan Kapoor of the BJP over Sudhir Sharma of the Congress was 2,997 votes in Dharamshala in 2017. The by-election to Dharamshala Assembly seat was necessitated after sitting BJP MLA Kishan Kapoor was elected to the Lok Sabha in May.