BJP sweeps two hill states of Himachal and Uttarakhand

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept the two hill states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand on Tuesday with some retaining their seats and other candidates who registered win for the first time

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept the two hill states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand on Tuesday with some retaining their seats and other candidates who registered win for the first time.

BJP candidate from Shimla constituency Suresh Kashyap celebrates with party workers as he leads during counting of votes for Lok Sabha elections in Shimla on Tuesday. (PTI)

The party marked a hat-trick winning Himachal’s all four parliamentary seats — Kangra, Shimla, Mandi and Hamirpur — albeit with reduced margins.

Union information and broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur posted his fifth win from Hamirpur securing 607,068 votes. He defeated his Congress rival, Satpal Raizada, with a margin of 182,357 votes.

The Congress had also ran a high-decibel campaign in Hamirpur.

In Kangra, BJP’s Rajeev Bhardwaj won with the highest margin in the state, beating Congress vanguard leader and former Union minister Anand Sharma by 251,895 votes.

Though Sharma ran a hectic campaign, raking up national issues like the Agniveer scheme and battle to save the Constitution, his pitch, however, failed to reach majority of the electorates.

Mandi Lok Sabha seat witnessed a fierce contest between actor-turned-politician and BJP candidate Kangana Ranaut and Congress’ Vikramaditya Singh.

While Vikramaditya performed well in the tribal belts across Kinnaur, Lahaul-Spiti, Rampur Bushahr and Anni, Ranaut secured a major chunk of 40,863 votes from former chief minister Jai Ram Thakur’s Seraj segment, while relying on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal and BJP’s achievements at the Centre.

In the Shimla constituency, sitting MP and BJP candidate Suresh Kashyap defeated Congress’s Vinod Sultanpuri by 91,451 votes.

Kashyap, who was instrumental in getting a tribal tag for the dominant Hatti community inhabiting the Trans Giri region in Sirmaur, received overwhelming support in his home district of Sirmaur.

In a similar feat in Uttarakhand, the BJP swept all five seats — Tehri Garhwal, Haridwar, Almora (SC), Garhwal, Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar — repeating its performance of last two general elections.

All five BJP candidates won by securing votes in the range of over 400,000 to 770,000 votes.

In Almora, BJP’s Ajay Tamta polled 429,167 votes, defeating Congress’s Pradeep Tamta, with a margin of 234,097 votes.

In the Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar seat, BJP’s Ajay Bhatt bagged 772,671 votes, defeating Congress’s Prakash Joshi with a margin of 334,548 votes.

In Tehri Garhwal seat, BJP’s Mala Rajya Lakshmi Shah polled462,603 votes, defeating Congress’s Jot Singh Gunsola, with a margin of 272,493 votes.

In the Garhwal seat, BJP’s Anil Baluni secured 432,159 votes, defeating Congress’ Ganesh Godiyal with a margin of 163,503 lakh votes. In the Haridwar seat, former CM and BJP candidate Trivendra Singh Rawat bagged 653,808 votes, defeating Virendra Rawat, Harish Rawat’s son, with a margin of 164,056 votes.

Speaking on an enormous victory in the general polls, chief minister and BJP leader Pushkar Singh Dhami said: “Today is a historic day when people in Uttarakhand and across the country have blessed us and given us the opportunity to form the government again.”

Uttarakhand went to polls during the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections on April 19.