Shimla, December 28
The BJP returned to power in Himachal Pradesh with a bang, winning 41 of the 68 seats in the assembly poll. The party will form a government in the state for the third time while P.K.Dhumal under whose leadership the party went to the polls will head the government for the second time.

The under-current for change was so strong that all senior ministers, except two, were humbled by relatively less-known rivals. Apart from Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, power minister Vidya Stokes and irrigation and public health minister Kaul Singh were the only two ministers who survived the anti-incumbency factor. The prominent losers included excise and taxation minister Rangila Ram Rao, forest minister Ram Lal Thakur, and industries minister Kuldeep Kumar, agriculture minister Raj Krishan Gaur and health minister Sujan Singh Pathania. However, Speaker Gangu Ram Musafir managed to win the Pachhad seat for the seventh consecutive time. Former tourism minister G.S.Bali, who had to resign in the wake of the controversial birthday party, won from Nagrota with a comfortable margin. Two old guards, Mansa Ram (BJP) and Ishwar Das (Cong), who made their electoral debut in 1967, lost this time.

The BSP, which raised vision of a third political front, fared badly with its firebrand state convener Vijay Mankotia licking dust in Dharamsala seat where he ended up third after the BJP and the Congress. The party just managed to open its account winning the solitary Kangra seat out of the 67 seats it contested.

The Congress, which won 43 seats in 2003, could secure only 23 seats, while Independents emerged victorious in Karsog, Theog and Nurpur.

The fact that the margin of victory was in three digits in about 10 seats indicated that it was a close battle. The Congress retained its hold in Shimla and Sirmaur districts but did poorly in Solan and Kulu where it failed to win a single seat. The party also lost much ground in Mandi district where its tally came down from eight to three.

One of the two Congress candidates who managed to get the ticket due to their links with Sonia Gandhi lost. While Prakash Karad , son of a former cook of Sonia Gandhi, came a poor third in Arki , Nand Lal , a former police officer, who was part of late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s security, won from Rampur by 6470 votes. It is worth mentioning that Karad got the ticket ahead of deputy speaker Dharma Pal while Nand Lal replaced civil supplies minister Singhi Ram.

Dhumal won from Bamsan with an impressive margin of over 26,000 votes while Virbhadra Singh also registered an easy win from Rohru, defeating his traditional BJP rival, Khushi Ram Balnatah, by over 14,000 votes. Stokes won from Kumarsain with a narrow margin of 1,250 votes while Kaul Singh won the Drang seat by 1709 votes.

Parliamentary constituency-wise the BJP won in maximum 12 assembly segments in Mandi, followed by 11 segments in Hamirpur and 10 in Kangra and eight in Shimla. It made a clean sweep of all three tribal seats. Prominent BJP winners included former ministers J.P.Nadda, Roop Singh, Mohinder Singh, Gulab Singh, Krishan Kapoor, Rajan Sushant, H.N.Singh, Narinder Bragta and Ravinder Ravi. State BJP president Jai Ram Thakur was re-elected from Chachiot while former state BJP chief Suresh Bhardwaj won from Shimla.