The BJP on Friday scored a convincing victory in Himachal Pradesh by bagging all four Lok Sabha seats. Despite all efforts by the Congress-led State government, the “Modi wave” swept the hill State, proving all political analysts wrong. Even the wife of Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, Pratibha Singh, a sitting MP, lost to the BJP’s greenhorn, Ram Swaroop Sharma by around 40,000 votes. Mr. Sharma was given the ticket when all senior leaders of the BJP refused to fight against her.
CPI(M) candidate Khushal Bhardwaj got around 14,000 votes and came third, followed by the AAP candidate with 9,000 votes.
Veteran BJP leader Shanta Kumar scored a record victory in Kangra defeating Chander Kumar of the Congress by more than 1.7 lakh votes despite the latter having a strong caste combination in his favour. The Aam Aadmi Party’s candidate, Rajan Sushant, the sitting MP who was earlier with the BJP, could muster just around 24,000 votes.
The BJP also bagged the high-profile Hamirpur seat where the former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal’s son and BJYM national president, Anurag Thakur, defeated Rajinder Rana by more than 98,000 votes.
Mr. Rana was a protégé of Mr. Dhumal and was an independent MLA. He was given Congress ticket by Mr. Virbhadra Singh to embarrass Mr. Dhumal.
His wife Anita Rana was given the Assembly ticket in his place from Sujanpur despite strong opposition from the Pradesh Congress Committee. On Friday, she lost the by-election to the BJP’s Narendra Thakur in a close contest.
AAP candidate Kamal Kanata Batra, mother of martyr Vikram Batra, came third with around 15,000 votes.
The Shimla seat was won by the BJP’s sitting MP Virender Kashyap by a big margin of around 84,000 votes. He defeated Mohan Lal Brakta, an MLA from Rohru. Surprisingly, the Congress candidate was defeated in the Chief Minister’s constituency of Shimla rural by a margin of around 2,000 votes.
Leader of the Opposition and former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal and BJP president Satpal Satti have demanded the Chief Minister’s resignation on moral grounds.
But Mr. Virbhadra Singh refused to quit and said it was not a referendum on his government.
Mr. Singh, who used to call himself a bigger leader than Narendra Modi in all his rallies here, on Friday accepted that it was a “Modi wave” that swept the country.
