New Delhi, June 06: The BJP retained Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat and romped home in two assembly constituencies while Congress bagged four assembly seats with an Independent emerging victorious in Jharkhand as results of all the bypolls held in six states on June two poured in Tuesday.
With Congress posting wins in both the bypolls in Manipur, the party, a dominant partner in the ruling Secular Progressive Front Ministry, secured a simple majority on its own.
The Congress now has 31 members in the 60-seat assembly.
In Himachal Pradesh, former Chief Minister and BJP leader Prem Kumar Dhumal pocketed the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat trouncing Congress nominee Ram Lal Thakur by over 80,000 votes.
Soon after he bit the dust, Thakur, the Himachal Forest Minister, quit the post owning moral responsibility for the defeat.
BJP's victory in the bypoll is seen as a shot in the arm for the saffron party ahead of assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh early next year.
Dhumal polled 3,82,128 votes against Thakur's 3,02,069 with Independents losing their security deposits.
Bye-election to Hamirpur Parliamentary constituency was necessitated due to expulsion of BJP MP Suresh Chandel in the wake of cash-for-query scam.
The saffron party, however, suffered a jolt in Madhya Pradesh when its arch-rival Congress wrested the Shivpuri assembly seat from it.
Virendra Singh Raghuvanshi (Cong) humbled BJP's Ganesh Gautam by 7,781 votes in the bypoll which arose after saffron party's Yashodhara Raje Scindia vacated the seat following her election to Lok Sabha from Gwalior.
Gautam, a former Congress MLA, was given the BJP ticket amidst stiff opposition from party workers.
Resentment among BJP workers was discernible with Raje keeping away from campaigning in the bastion of royal family of Scindias.
In Chhattisgarh, the ruling BJP wrested Khairagarh and Malkharoda assembly seats from Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party respectively.
BJP's Komal Janghel drubbed his Congress rival Padma Devi by over 15,900 votes in Khairagarh while in Malkharoda, Nirmal Sinha humbled Mohan Mani of Congress by a margin of 21,987 votes.
Inder Singh Namdhari, an independent, retained the Daltonganj assembly seat in Jharkhand defeating Anil Kumar Chowrasia of All Jharkhand Students Union by 10,191 votes.
Namdhari entered the assembly for the sixth time in his political career.
Bureau Report
