Hyderabad: The counting of votes for the Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections has concluded. The Congress has won in 40 assembly constituencies while the BJP secured 25 seats. Amid many one-sided contests, there were some candidates who put up a tough fight against their opponents so much so that one could not tell through the better part of the counting day who would claim the seat.
In some constituencies, the difference between a win and a loss came down to double digits. Here are 13 such neck-and-neck contests that the hill state saw today:
- Congress Suresh Kumar contesting from Bhoranj polled 24779 votes defeating BJP's Dr. Anil Nigam by a margin of just 60 votes. In 2017, Suresh lost the seat to BJP's Kamlesh Kumari Yadav.
- BJP's Randhir Sharma from Sri Naina Deviji constituency defeated Congress Ram Lal Thakur by a margin of 171 votes. Sharma polled 29403 votes. Ram Lal Thakur had won the seat in 2017.
- BJP's Trilok Jamwal contesting from 'Bilaspur' clinched 30988 votes and defeated Congress Bumber Thakur by a margin of 276 votes. In 2017 BJP's Subhash Thakur won the seat.
- Congress sitting MLA, Harshwardhan Chauhan from 'Shilai' polled 32093 votes and defeated BJP's Baldev Singh by a margin of 382 votes.
- Congress-sitting MLA Rajinder Singh Rana from Sujanpur polled 27679 votes and defeated BJP's Ranjit Singh Rana by a margin of 399 votes.
- Congress sitting MLA Nand Lal from Rampur polled 28397 votes and defeated BJP's Kaul Singh by a margin of 567 votes.
- BJP's Puran Chand contesting from Darang and clinched 36572 votes and defeated Congress Kaul Singh by a margin of 618 votes.
- Congress Vinay Kumar from Sri Renukaji defeated BJP's Narain Singh by a margin of 860 votes. Kumar polled 28642 votes.
- BJP's Inder Singh contesting from Balh polled 31792 votes and defeated Congress Prakash Chaudhary by a margin of 1307 votes.
- Congress Kuldeep Singh Pathania contesting from 'Bhattiyat' polled 25989 votes and defeated BJP's Bikram Singh by a margin of 1567 votes.
- Congress Ravi Thakur from Lahaul & Spiti polled 9948 votes and defeated BJP's Ram Lal Markanda by a margin of 1616 votes. Earlier the seat was held by BJP's Jawahar Thakur.
- Ajay Solanki of Congress polled 35291 votes in Nahan constituency and defeated BJP's Dr Rajeev Bindal with 1639 votes.
- BJP's Bikram Singh from 'Jaswan Pragpur' polled 22658 votes and defeated Congress Surinder Singh Mankotia by a margin of 1789 votes. Polling for the 68-member Himachal Pradesh Assembly was held on November 12.
