Bypoll to three Assembly seats in Himachal on July 10

Shimla: The Election Commission on Monday announced a bypoll to three Assembly constituencies in Himachal Pradesh on July 10.

The bypolls were necessitated due to the resignation of the incumbent members, all Independents.

The Assembly seats are Hamirpur, Dehra and Nalagarh.

Himachal Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Pathania on June 3 accepted the resignation of all three Independent MLAs -- Hoshiyar Singh (Dehra), Ashish Sharma (Hamirpur) and K.L. Thakur (Nalagarh).

They had voted in favour of the BJP candidate along with six Congress legislators in the Rajya Sabha election.

The notification for the byelections will be issued on June 14, the last date for filing of nomination papers is June 21, the poll papers will be scrutinised on June 24 and the last date for withdrawal of nomination papers is June 26.

The bypolls will be held on July 10 and the counting of votes will be on July 13.

Earlier this month, the state ruling Congress won four of the six Assembly seats that went to bypolls, securing a majority in the 68-member that is reduced to 65 members after the resignations of three independent MLAs.

The Congress improved its tally from 34 to 38, while the BJP’s members have gone up to 27 after the victory in the bypolls.

The Congress had won the Sujanpur, Gagret, Kutlehar and Lahaul-Spiti Assembly seats, while the BJP won the Dharamsala and Barsar seats.