Candidates who won with highest margin of votes in 2017 Himachal Pradesh polls

All of the top ten candidates who won in the 2017 with the highest margin were from the BJP

The contest for Himachal Pradesh, which goes to polls on November 12, is set to be an interesting one with experts waiting to see if the state repeats history by voting the incumbent party out of power.

The elections, a bipolar contest between the BJP and Congress, will bank on local MLAs' popularity and their development-related works. Most importantly, the contest will be a litmus test for the grand old party to see if it still has the ability to wrest power from the BJP.

All of the top ten candidates who won in the 2017 Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections with the highest margin of votes were from the BJP and several of these defeated sitting Congress MLAs from their constituencies.

The top 3 candidates who won with the highest margin of votes were from Mandi and Kangra districts and belonged to the Scheduled Caste category.

Read | BJP yet to fulfil promises made to people of Himachal: Congress

Vinod Kumar of the BJP won the Nachan constituency in Mandi with the highest differential of over 15,800 votes against INC rival Lal Singh Kaushal.

Interestingly, in the previous Himachal Pradesh Assembly Elections in 2012, Nachan was won by the same candidate, Vinod Kumar, however with a margin of just over 3,000 votes, a 5.5 per cent winning margin, far lower than in 2017.

Inder Singh from Balh from the Mandi district had defeated sitting Congress MLA Prakash Chaudhary with over 12,800 votes, winning with the second-highest vote margin.

In 2012, Prakash Chaudhary had won the Balh seat with a margin of over 3,100 votes or 6.1 per cent.

Mulkh Raj from Baijnath constituency (Kangra) trumped rival Kishori Lal with a margin of over 12,600 votes, the third-highest. In the previous election, Kishori Lal had won against Mulkh Raj with over 6,600 votes.

Chief Minister Jairam Thakur was also among the top 10 to win with the largest margin of votes. He contested and won from his seat, Seraj, in Mandi district with a difference of 11,254 votes. Thakur won in 2017 with a much higher margin than in 2012, when he defeated Congress candidate Tara Thakur with just over 5,000 votes.

Constituency No.	Constituency Name	Candidate	Winning Party	Runner-up Candidate	Runner-up Party	Candidate Category	Total valid votes polled +NOTA	Margin	Margin (%)
28	Nachan	Vinod Kumar	BJP	Lal Singh Kaushal	INC	SC	62,893	15,896	25.97
34	Balh	Inder Singh	BJP	Prakash Chaudhary	INC	SC	58,778	12,811	22.35
20	Baijnath	Mulkh Raj	BJP	Kishori Lal	INC	SC	53,869	12,669	24.19
58	Paonta Sahib	Sukh Ram	BJP	Kirnesh Jung	INC	GEN	61,467	12,619	20.93
32	Dharampur	Mahender Singh	BJP	Chandershekhar	INC	GEN	49,746	11,964	24.88
29	Seraj	Jai Ram Thakur	BJP	Chet Ram	INC	GEN	63,900	11,254	17.94
13	Jaisinghpur	Ravinder Kumar	BJP	Yadvinder Goma	INC	SC	50,896	10,710	21.46
47	Ghumarwin	Rajinder Garg	BJP	Rajesh Dharmani	INC	GEN	61,395	10,435	17.47
14	Sullah	Vipin Singh Parmar	BJP	Jagjiwan Paul	INC	GEN	70,486	10,291	14.96
33	Mandi	Anil Sharma	BJP	Champa Thakur	INC	GEN	55,253	10,257	19.26

Among others in the top ten is Sukh Ram, who defeated Congress candidate Kirnesh Jung in Paonta Sahib with over 12,600 votes and Mahender Singh who retained his Dharampur seat with 11,964 votes. Ravinder Kumar (Jaisinghpur), Rajinder Garg (Ghumarwin), Vipin Singh (Parmar Sullah) and Anil Sharma (Mandi) all won with a margin of over 10,000 votes.

Himachal Pradesh goes to polls on November 12, 2022 and the counting of votes will take place on December 8.