Congress Barely Scrapes Victory In Several 15 Himachal Pradesh Seats

Although Congress wrested power from the BJP in Himachal Pradesh winning 40 out of 68 seats, the party barely scraped by in 15 seats with victory margin there being less than 2,000.

The margin between the two parties in Bhoranj, Sujanpur, Darang, Bilaspur, Sri Naina Devi, Rampur, Shillai, and Sri Renukaji was less than 1,000 votes.

In Bhattiyat, Balh, Una, Jaswan Pragpur, Lahaul and Spiti, Sarkaghat, and Nahan the difference was only between 1,000 to 2,000.

State Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur won by 38,183 votes - the highest margin - from Seraj in Mandi district, while BJP candidate Pawan Kajal won in Kangra by a margin of 19,834 votes. Mohan Lal Brakta secured a lead of 19,339 votes from Rohru reserve constituency.

Congress' Suresh Kumar won in Bhoranj by merely 60 votes -- the least victory margin, followed by 171 and 276 which was the winning margin for BJP candidates Randhir Sharma and Trilok Jamwal who contested the polls from Sri Naina Devi and Bilaspur.

Congress and BJP got 40 and 25 seats respectively but the difference of vote share was only 0.90 per cent.

Talking to the media here on Thursday, Chief Minister Thakur said "If you also see vote share, the difference is just about 1 per cent. Despite that, Congress registered a win in many seats. But we respect the mandate." When asked what went wrong for BJP, Mr Thakur said the reasons for defeat would be analysed later.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)