The Congress wrestled the hill state of Himachal Pradesh from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), winning 40 seats in the 68-member Assembly. The Congress dislodged BJP by just 37,974 votes. The difference in the vote share between the two parties was a mere 0.9 percent.
While the Congress secured 43.90 percent vote share (18,52,504 votes), the saffron party received 43 percent vote share (18,14,530 votes), but translating to only 25 seats. Three independent candidates also emerged victorious in the Assembly polls.
The AAP received 1.10 percent votes, the CPI-M 0.66 percent, the BSP 0.35 percent, and Independents and others got 10.39 percent, while 0.59 percent went to NOTA.
In the 2017 state elections, the BJP won 44 seats, the Congress 21, the CPI(M) one and Independents two. The BJP then got 48.8 percent votes, and the Congress 41.7 percent. The hill state maintained its tradition of voting incumbent government out of power since 1985.
Wafer-thin victory margin
The Congress had a wafer-thin victory margin of less than 2,000 in 15 seats. The difference in the number of votes in Bhoranj, Sujanpur, Darang, Bilaspur, Sri Naina Devi, Rampur, Shillai, and Sri Renukaji was less than 1,000 votes.
In six seats -- Bhattiyat, Balh, Una, Jaswan Pragpur, Lahaul and Spiti, Sarkaghat, and Nahan -- the difference was between 1,000 to 2,000 votes.
The AAP failed to open its account and the CPI-M also did not win any seat while its sitting MLA from Theog also lost.
BJP chief JP Nadda thanked the party workers for their hard work in his home state Himachal Pradesh and asserted that the "raj may have changed, but 'riwaz' also changed as there was a gap of less than one percent in the vote share of the top two parties".
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi thanked the people of Himachal Pradesh for the "decisive win" of his party and assured them that every promise made by the party will be fulfilled.
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