BJP wins Solan MC by-election by 283 votes

BJP’s Amardeep defeated Congress’ Puneet Narang by 283 votes in the by-election for the Solan Municipal Corporation (MC) held today. Punam Bansal, SDM, Solan, said BJP’s Amardeep polled 523 votes against 240 votes cast in favour of Congress’ Puneet Narang. The SDM said two voters opted for NOTA.

As many as 765 votes were cast by enthusiastic voters who turned up in good numbers at polling stations to exercise their right to franchise as the day progressed.

With this victory, the strength of the BJP councillors has once again gone up to six in the civic body House. The seat had fallen vacant after the demise of BJP councillor Kulbhushan Gupta in March this year. The saffron party was keen to wrestle back the seat and retain its strength in the MC.

Congress’ Puneet Narang was no match for Amardeep as the former could not even secure 50 per cent of the votes polled in favour of the BJP candidate.

Optimistic of winning the seat, Narang had resigned from the post of a nominated councillor before filing his nomination. Facing leadership crisis in the ward, the Congress fielded Narang despite knowing that a few party functionaries favoured some other candidate.

Though the result would not impact the political equations in the MC as the Congress had the lion’s share of nine out of 17 councillors, this loss reflected poorly on the ruling party and the leadership of Health and Family Welfare Minister DR Shandil who is a senior most Cabinet Minister.

The internal bickering among nine Congress councillors in the civic body since the past two years was once again exposed in this by-election as party functionaries had already conceded defeat days before the bypoll.

Though the Pradesh Congress Committee president had directed all councillors, including nominated and elected, to campaign for the party candidate, it failed to help. The BJP on the other hand accorded significance to this ward by-election and campaigned vigorously for its candidate.

State BJP president Dr Rajiv Bindal thanked the people of Solan for the spectacular victory of the party. “It’s a big “fatwa” against the current Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu-led state government. Despite health minister regularly going door-to-door in this ward to canvass for votes, the government had to face a big defeat in the bypoll. The BJP got more than twice the votes than the Congress. It’s the vote of the public against the current government’s false guarantee and the monetary burden imposed on the common man.”

Jai Ram Thakur, Leader of the Opposition, said, “The present government is taking anti-people decisions. The anger of the public was clearly visible during this by-election.” Lok Sabha MP Suresh Kashyap, Union Minister Anurag Thakur and other party leaders congratulated Amardeep for his victory.