Reflects changing political climate in country: Congress on bypoll gains

The Congress on Saturday hailed its gains in the assembly bypolls in Himachal Pradesh and BJP-ruled Uttarakhand, saying the results "reflect the changing political climate in the country".

The Congress won both the assembly bypolls in Uttarakhand and in Himachal Pradesh, it secured two out of the three seats where bye-elections were held.

On the party's victories in Uttarakhand, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, in a post on 'X', said, "Manglaur was wrested from the BSP and in the face of dirty tactics by the BJP. In Badrinath, the sitting MLA was a Congressman who had switched to the BJP during the Lok Sabha polls. He has been rightly punished by the people and the Congress has held on to the seat."

"Both ways the results reflect the changing political climate in the country," he said.

On the Himachal Pradesh bypoll results, Ramesh said that "all machinations of the BJP have failed miserably".

"The Congress has won two of the assembly seats held by Independents who had been lured away as part of Operation Lotus. This is reflective of the significant recovery of the Congress and public disgust with the BJP, he said.

The Congress' Himachal Pradesh in-charge Rajiv Shukla said, "We have won two bye-elections in Himachal out of three. Now, the party's strength is back to 40 again in a house of 68. It will provide stability to our government."

Three Himachal Pradesh Assembly seats -- Dehra, Hamirpur and Nalagarh -- had fallen vacant following the resignation of three Independent MLAs who voted for the BJP candidate in Rajya Sabha elections held in February and later joined the party.

Congress candidate Kamlesh Thakur, the wife of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, defeated BJP's Hoshiyar Singh in the Dehra seat by a margin of 9,399 votes. In the Nalagarh assembly bypoll, Congress' Hardeep Singh Bawa defeated BJP's K L Thakur by 8,990 votes.

Bawa is a five-time Indian National Trade Union Congress president.

BJP's Ashish Sharma managed to win the Hamirpur assembly bypoll by securing 1,571 votes more than his nearest rival and Congress candidate Pushpender Verma.

In BJP-ruled Uttarakhand, Congress's Lakhapat Singh Butola won the Badrinath assembly bypoll, defeating BJP's Rajendra Singh Bhandari, a former minister and MLA, by 5,224 votes. In Manglaur, Congress' Qazi Mohammad Nizamuddin defeated BJP's Kartar Singh Bhadana by 422 votes.

On Wednesday, bypolls for 13 assembly seats were held in Punjab (1), Himachal Pradesh (3), Uttarakhand (2), West Bengal (4), Madhya Pradesh (1), Bihar (1) and Tamil Nadu (1).

The Congress, TMC, AAP and DMK are among the INDIA bloc parties that fielded candidates in the bypolls.