Himachal Pradesh: Counting of votes begins for Lok Sabha elections, bypolls to six assembly seats

Shimla, Jun 4 (PTI) Counting of votes began at 8 am amid tight security for Himachal Pradesh’s four Lok Sabha seats and six assembly constituencies where bypolls were held, officials said on Tuesday.

The counting process for the Lok Sabha elections, being conducted at more than 80 centres across the state, will decide the fate of 62 candidates, including Union Minister Anurag Thakur, actor Kangana Ranaut and four-time Rajya Sabha MP Anand Sharma.

Himachal Pradesh’s Public Works Minister Vikramaditya Singh and the BJP’s former state unit chief Suresh Kashyap are also in the fray.

Senior BJP leader Thakur, the son of former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, is seeking a fifth term from Hamirpur.

In Mandi, BJP candidate Ranaut — in her first foray into the political arena — is contesting against the Congress’ Vikramaditya Singh, the son of former chief minister Virbhadra Singh.

The outer and middle rings of the three-tier security cordon at the counting centres are being guarded by about 900 personnel of the police while the inner circle is manned by the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF), election officials said.

They added that 41 platoons of the CAPF have been deployed. The assembly constituencies where bypolls were held are Sujanpur, Dharamshala, Lahaul & Spiti, Barsar, Gagret and Kutlehar.

The six seats fell vacant after the rebel Congress MLAs who abstained from voting on the cut motion and finance bill (Budget) in the assembly were disqualified for defying a party whip to be present in the House and vote in favour of the government. They later joined the BJP and were fielded by the party from the constituencies they had vacated.

The bypolls were held on June 1, simultaneously with elections to the four Lok Sabha seats.

The 68-member Himachal Pradesh Assembly currently has an effective strength of 62, following the disqualification of the six MLAs. The Congress has 34 members in the House while the BJP has 25 at present.

The BJP won all four Lok Sabha seats — Kangra, Mandi, Hamirpur and Shimla — in the 2014 and the 2019 elections. However, it lost the Mandi seat to the Congress in a 2021 bypoll.