Congress’s Hardeep Bawa wins Nalagarh seat, rebel Saini plays spoilsport for BJP

Ambika Sharma

Solan, July 13

Congress candidate Hardeep Bawa defeated BJP’s KL Thakur by 8,990 votes in the Nalagarh byelection here today. BJP rebel and Independent candidate Harpreet Saini bagged 13,025 votes and played spoilsport for the BJP. Kishori Lal Sharma of the Swabhiman Party got 492 votes while another Independent candidate Vijay Singh got 353 votes. As many as 446 people preferred the NOTA option.

The BJP had secured a lead of 15,164 votes from Nalagarh in the recent Lok Sabha elections but lost the byelection. Bawa’s vote share rose tremendously in the past one and a half year from mere 20,163 votes in the 2022 Assembly elections to 34,608 votes this time. He led in all rounds, negating the ‘outsider’ tag labelled by the BJP against him.

KL Thakur secured 25,618 votes compared to 33,427 votes (44.51 per cent) he had polled in the 2022 Assembly elections. The election result also reversed the tradition that a candidate from the opposition party wins the seat.

Bawa attained an early lead of 646 votes in the first round, which increased to 1,571 and 2,197 votes after the second and third rounds, respectively. He continued to give the BJP candidate nervous moments as his lead increased to 3,078 and 3,548 votes after the fourth and fifth rounds.

KL Thakur continued to trail and was behind Bawa by 4,137 votes after the sixth round. Bawa consolidated his lead further to 4,578 and 6,870 votes after the seventh and eight rounds and won the byelection by 8,990 votes after the last round.

Saini, a nephew of former BJP MLA HN Saini, bagged 13,025 votes and played spoilsport for the BJP. He got support from a disgruntled section of the BJP, which was opposed to KL Thakur’s candidature.

BJP leaders were hoping that Saini would eat into the vote share of Congress’ Bawa as both hail from Pargana Plassi.