The bypoll for the lone Mandi Parliamentary constituency and three Assembly seats in Himachal Pradesh will be held on October 30 and the counting of ballots on November 2.
The bypoll for the Mandi Lok Sabha seat was necessitated after the death of BJP MP Ramswaroop Sharma. The three Assembly seats -- Jubbal Kotkhai (Shimla district), Fatehpur (Kangra district) and Arki (Solan district) -- have fallen vacant after the demise of Narinder Bragta of the BJP, Sujan Singh Pathania of the Congress and former six-time Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh of the Congress, respectively.
The Election Commission on Tuesday released the bypoll schedule for three parliamentary constituencies and 30 Assembly constituencies across the country.
The bypolls in Himachal is seen as a litmus test of Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur. The electoral battle on the crucial Mandi Parliamentary seat in the home district of the Chief Minister will be keenly watched.
The Congress has indicated that former CM Virbhadra Singh’s wife Pratibha Singh, a two-time MP, may contest from the Mandi seat while the BJP is yet to open its cards. Pratibha Singh had lost to Ram Swaroop Sharma with a huge margin in 2014 and did not contest in 2019 general elections.