The ruling BJP on Thursday retained both Dharamshala and Pachhad seats in Himachal Pradesh in the bypolls though the victory margin got reduced due to the presence of rebels in the fray.
In Pachhad, Reena Kashyap of the BJP defeated her nearest rival Former Minister Gangu Ram Musafir of the Congress by a margin of 2,742 votes. Rebel BJP candidate Dayal Pyari, who contested as an independent, finished third. BJP's victory margin came down as Dayal Pyari got over 11000 votes.
In Dharamshala, BJP's Vishal Nehria defeated his nearest rival Rakesh Kumar by a margin of 6,758 votes. Kumar was a BJP rebel and contested as an independent candidate.
Vijay Inder Karan of the Congress lost his security deposit as he failed to get even the required one-sixth of total polled valid votes.
In the 2017 Assembly elections, the victory margin of Kishan Kapoor of the BJP over Sudhir Sharma of the Congress was of 2,997 votes in Dharamshala.
The by-elections to Pachhad and Dharamshala assembly seats were necessitated after sitting BJP MLAs Suresh Kashyap and Kishan Kapoor were elected to the Lok Sabha.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur thanked the people of Pachhad and Dharamshala Assembly constituencies for electing the BJP candidates.
He said people of these constituencies have expressed faith and confidence in the policies and programmes of the present BJP government. He also thanked the party workers for relentlessly ensuring the victory of the party candidates in these by-elections.
Thakur said that State Government had strived hard to come up to the aspirations and expectations of the people during its last about two years.
He said that various welfare and employment oriented schemes have been initiated by the Government.