The Hindu : Cong. wrests Himachal, Left retains Tripura

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 02, 2003

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Cong. wrests Himachal, Left retains Tripura

New Delhi March. 1. Rising from its Gujarat debacle, the Congress today stormed back to power in Himachal Pradesh ousting the Bharatiya Janata Party in the predominantly Hindu State falling just short of a two-thirds majority and was placed in a position to cobble up a coalition in Meghalaya, but lost power in Nagaland.

In Tripura, the ruling Left Front, which has been in Government since 1992, maintained its stranglehold securing 35 seats while the Opposition Congress and its new-found ally, INPT, together managed seven seats each of the 49 seats declared so far.

An anti-incumbency wave appeared to have delivered the shock for the BJP in the hill State of Himachal Pradesh, where attempts by the Hindutva's latest icon Narendra Modi to weave his "Gujarat magic" failed. Many BJP stalwarts, including the Speaker, Gulabchand Thakur, the State unit president, Jaikishen Sharma, and 15 Ministers were humbled.

The Congress' Chief Ministerial candidate, Virbhadra Singh, won handsomely with a margin of more than 17,000 votes in Rohroo. The Chief Minister, P.K. Dhumal, retained his Bamsan seat.

An elated Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, said the results had nailed the BJP's propaganda of a "so-called" Hindutva wave throughout the country. The BJP president, M. Venkiah Naidu, said dissidents and rebels were to be blamed for the defeat.

The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and the Deputy Prime Minster, L.K. Advani, will meet other party leaders on Sunday to analyse the rout.

The CPI (M), the major partner in Tripura's ruling Left Front, secured an absolute majority on its own winning 32 seats in the 60-member House, while its partners, the RSP and the CPI won two seats and one seat respectively.

As Nagaland headed for a hung Assembly, the NSCN (I-M)-supported Naga People's Front, with 15 seats out of 46 declared so far, may find itself in a better position to cobble up a coalition with anti-Congress parties like the BJP (five), JD-U (two), Samata Party (one) and some others.

The Congress, which ruled the State for long, has bagged only 18 seats so far in the 60-member Assembly. Counting of votes was still on in 11 seats. Polling has not been completed in three constituencies.

In Meghalaya, the Congress, which did not have a formal alliance with its coalition partners in the outgoing Government, was better placed to form a government having emerged as the single largest party with 22 seats in a 60-member House.

Ms. Gandhi indicated that the party might tie-up with the NCP and others including UDP, MDP and HSPDP to form the government. Together, these parties have bagged 51 seats. Independents have secured five seats and the BJP and KHNAM two each.

The Opposition BJP, which had three members in the Assembly, managed to win only two seats, while its ally, the Garo National Council lost its lone seat.

Ruling parties today won six of the seven Assembly byelections held in six States with the Congress bagging two, while the Opposition Samajwadi Party prevented a clean sweep by them clinching the prestigious Haidergarh Assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh.

The Congress won two seats in Humnabad (Karnataka) and Ratabari (Assam). The two seats at stake in U.P. were shared by the Bahujan Samaj Party and the SP, with the former snatching the prestigious Gauriganj Assembly seat falling in the Amethi Parliamentary constituency. The BSP nominee, Jung Bahadur, registered a convincing victory over Fateh Bahadur of the Congress in Gauriganj by over 7000 votes while the BJP, which had taken the second place in the last elections by a very thin margin, has been pushed to the third spot.

The BSP gamble of fielding a Thakur for the Gauriganj seat in the backdrop of the Opposition allegations that the community was angry with Ms. Mayawati following the stern action taken against the independent legislator, Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, by arresting him under POTA, too has paid off well. In Haidergarh, it was a loss of face for the BJP with the SP candidate wresting the seat from it.

In Jammu and Kashmir, Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed's People's Democratic Party today scored its first electoral victory after assuming power four months ago as its candidate won the Pampore assembly byelection by an impressive margin of 12,782 votes. The strength of the PDP in the 87-member House has gone up to 17.

The candidate of the Nationalist Congress Party, a constituent of the Congress-led ruling coalition in Maharashtra, emerged victorious in Bokharden, while the AIADMK triumphed in Sattankulam in Tamil Nadu.

In Assam, the Congress candidate, Kripanath Mallah, won the Ratabari seat defeating his nearest BJP rival Sambhu Singh Mallah by 31,170 votes. The Congress candidate polled 49104 votes, while his opponent got 17934 votes. The election was necessitated by the death of the independent MLA, Ratish Ranjan Choudhury.

PTI

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