BJP and Congress engaged in helping strong independents with chances of victory
Shimla (Hindustan Times). The countdown for the counting of votes for the assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh has begun. Election results will be declared on 08 December. BJP and Congress are confident of forming their respective governments. Both the parties are confident that they will form a government with absolute majority on their own strength, although in view of the possibility of the number being less, the exercise to complete it has also been completed in both the parties. In such a situation, the importance of some leaders contesting as independents has also increased. To help the independents whose chances of winning are said to be high, both the contenders for power are contacting them through their emissaries. The effort is that if there is any shortfall in the required number to form the government, it will be made up by independent MLAs.
In fact, this time a large number of independents have won the elections. Of the 412 candidates in the fray for 68 seats, 99 are independents. On not getting tickets from both the parties, about 30 leaders rebelled and contested as independents. About 21 rebels of BJP and 9 of Congress are in the fray. Strong rebels of BJP contesting as independents include Hiteshwar, son of former Banjar MP and MLA Maheshwar Singh, MLA from Ani Kishori Lal Sagar, MLA from Dehra Hoshiar Singh, former MLA from Nalagarh KL Thakur, former MLA from Indora Manohar Dhiman, from Kinnaur Former MLA Tejwant Negi, former MP from Fatehpur Kirpal Parmar, former minister Roop Singh Thakur’s son Abhishek Thakur from Sundernagar, Subhash Sharma from Bilaspur, Praveen Sharma from Mandi and Ram Singh from Kullu, Vipin Naihariya from Dharamshala, Sanjeev Sharma from Barsar and Chamba. Including Indira Kapoor.
Those who rebelled against the Congress and contested as independents included former Assembly Speaker Ganguram Musafir from Pachhad, two former MLAs from Chopal and Sulah, Subhash Manglet and Jagjivan Pal, Vijay Pal Khachi from Theog, Paras Ram from Ani, Sushil Kaul from Jaisinghpur, Rajendra from Arki. Thakur is contesting as an independent from Hamirpur against Ashish Sharma, the party’s candidate.
This time in the assembly elections, a direct contest is being seen between the BJP and the Congress on all the seats. It is clear from this that the margin of victory and defeat will be very less in many seats. In such a situation, nothing can be said clearly about which party will get how many seats and whose government will be formed. In 2017 elections, the margin of victory and defeat in 18 seats was less than two thousand.
Source: dainikbhaskarup.com”