BJP’s Ashish Sharma retains Hamirpur seat

Dinesh Kanwar

Hamirpur, July 13

BJP candidate Ashish Sharma won the Hamirpur Assembly byelection by a margin of 1,571 votes here today. He defeated Congress candidate Pushpinder Verma in a close contest. He secured 27,041 votes while Verma polled 25,470 votes.

In the 2022 Assembly elections, Ashish had defeated Verma by a huge margin of 12,899 votes. He had secured 25,916 votes while Verma had polled 13,017 votes. Verma improved his performance by 12,453 votes this time while Ashish also got 1,125 votes more than the 2022 elections.

Manish Soni, Assistant Returning Officer, said that Independent candidate Nand Lal got only 74 votes while 198 voters chose the NOTA option.

Later, BJP workers and leaders celebrated Ashish’s victory by bursting firecrackers outside the counting centre and later organised a rally in the market.

Meanwhile, Congress candidate Pushpinder Verma said that he was thankful to the people of the Hamirpur constituency for their huge support in the byelection. He also thanked Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and HPCC president Pratinbha Singh for fielding him as Congress candidate from the constituency.

Verma, who polled 25,470 votes, said that he was indebted to Technical Education Minister Rajesh Dharmani, Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri, PWD Minister Vikramaditya Singh, former minister Kaul Singh Thakur for supporting him in the byelection.