Himachal Pradesh Congress Vice President Naresh Chauhan said that the Leader of the opposition Jai Ram Thakur has failed to provide a new date for ‘government change’ in HP.

The by-elections are scheduled for July 10, after 3 Independent MLAs - Ashish Sharma (Hamirpur), Hoshiyar Singh (Dehra), and KL Thakur (Nalagarh) - resigned from the assembly on March 22 and joined the BJP the following day. 

Election Commission declares by-polls to three Assemblies segments, Dehra, Hamirpur and Nalagarh, vacated due to resignation by three Independent MLAs who have joined BJP.

Himachal CM Sukhu said, “It's not an ordinary election in Himachal, it's between honesty and dishonesty and will set the course of future politics in the hill state.”

While Congress banks on Sharma’s stature and maturity in politics, BJP hopes to cash in on his outsider tag and seek votes on PM Modi’s name.

The party’s confidence stems from it having has 13 out of 17 MLAs in the constituency, with five of them as ministers, three Central Parliamentary Secretaries and deputy speaker.

With this, Congress has now declared candidates for all four Lok Sabha seats and six Assembly segments, which are going for by-poll simultaneously with Parliament polls.

When asked why Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been saying that "election is a mission and not an ambition" for him, Sharma said that the prime minister should not have said the things he has been saying and his "claims" that the BJP has already won the elections are "undemocratic". 

Former Union Minister, Anand Sharma may have to work very hard to strike a chord with locals in his maiden electoral battle for Lok Sabha in Kangra, yet many in Congress are enthused that he may give the party an advantage of sorts with his national-level stature and the capacity to take up issues in public against BJP’s low profile candidate Rajeev Bhardwaj.

Political equations have gone haywire for both BJP and Congress in the Himalayan state, with many awkward firsts in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls and Assembly by-polls

Fifteen months after the formation of Congress government in Himachal Pradesh in 2022, Congress and BJP rebels are locked in a direct fight  in the by-poll.

Interestingly, the party chooses to field BJP rebels on Congress tickets against Congress rebels contesting on BJP tickets in Sujanpur Assembly segment in the Hamirpur district.