BJP, Congress neck and neck in Sirmaur

Tribune News Service

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Solan, January 23

Even as the counting is yet to be completed for the 17 zila parishad seats in Sirmaur, out of the 11 seats, the BJP and the Congress bagged five each and one was bagged by a BJP rebel.

State’s first Chief Minister Dr YS Parmar’s grandson Anand Parmar also won his maiden poll from Narag as a Congress candidate.

Other Congress candidates who won are Prithvi Raj Chauhan, Nohradhar. Both seats in Shillai block — Kando Bhatnol and Gawali — have been won by Congress candidates Vidhya Devi and Chameli Devi. Shillai MLA Harshwardhan Chauhan has strengthened his stronghold over the Shillai constituency by bagging the two seats.

The Devthi Majgaon seat in Rajgarh block has been bagged by Congress’ Vinay Bagnal. Rajgarh is also the home turf of the state BJP president Suresh Kashyap and losing this seat has lent a major blow to the saffron party. The BJP’s Seema Devi won from Sangrah, Nirmala Devi from Bankla, Pushpa from Kala Amb, Surender Singh from Dadahoo and Satish Thakur from Shilanji.

Neelam Devi, who won as an Independent from Bag Pashog, is a BJP rebel and her victory is significant as she has won on the home turf of BJP’s state president Suresh Kashyap. Congress candidate Poonam Thakur emerged second from this ward while BJP candidate Lalita Sharma was a poor third. Losing this seat reflects adversely on Kashyap’s hold in his home ward and does not augur well for the ruling party which was hoping to bag maximum seats in the zila parishad. With counting for six seats still underway, both the BJP and Congress leaders were having anxious moments.