SHIMLA: Ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress I shared two parliamentary seats each in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh while Janata Dal and Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar’ s Samajwadi Janata Party (SJP) drew a blank.
Congress-I retained the Shimla reserve seat while it wrested the Mandi seat from BJP. Former federal minister of state Sukh Ram avenged his 1989 defeat when he trounced state BJP chief Mahesh war Singh by a margin of 26627 votes in Mandi constituency. Sukh Ram had lost to Maheswar Singh in 1989 by over 28,000 votes.
K D Sultan Puri of Congress-I retained the Shimla (reserve) seat and was successful for the fourth consecutive time winning the seat in 1980 in 1985 and 1989. He defeated his nearest BJP rival Mr Roop Dass Kashyap by 46,860 votes.
The BJP retained the Kangra and Hamirpur seats but with a drastically reduced margin. D D Khanooria the sitting BJP MP from Kangra defeated Chandresh Kumari of Congress-I by 10369 votes in a tough contest.
In 1989 state chief minister Shanta Kumar had won this seat in by over 59000 votes and Khanooria himself had won by over 77000 votes in the subsequent bye-election.
Janata Dal candidate in Kangra Suresh Chaudhary was the only one of his party who did not lose his deposit.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 21, 1991
