Himachal Pradesh Lok Sabha Election 2024 Exit Poll Results: ETG predicts 3 seats for BJP, 1 for Congress

NEW DELHI: The BJP-led NDA is expected to secure 3 seats in Himachal Pradesh in the Lok Sabha election 2024, according to exit poll released by ETG on Saturday.
While the Indian National Congress (INC) is poised to win only 1 seat in the state, predicted ETG.
All seats in the state went to the polls in the seventh and last phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha election on Saturday.
Himachal Pradesh comprises four Lok Sabha constituencies which are Kangra, Mandi, Hamirpur, and Shimla.
A voter turnout of about 68 per cent was recorded on Saturday in the four Lok Sabha constituencies of Himachal Pradesh where polling was held in the last phase of the general election, officials said.
Vote counting is scheduled for June 4.
In the political arena of Himachal Pradesh, located in the north-west region of India, the two main contenders are the Indian National Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
In the 2019 elections, the BJP clinched all 4 seats in the state with comfortable vote margins above 3.2 lakh in each seat. All the seats also saw a voter turnout of above 70%.
However, in the 2021 Lok Sabha bypoll in Mandi, Congress leader Pratibha, wife of former chief minister late Virbhadra Singh, defeated BJP candidate Brigadier Khushal Thakur by a margin of 8,766 votes.
In the 2024 elections, the BJP retained its sitting MPs Anurag Thakur (Hamirpur) and Suresh Kumar Kashyap (Shimla-SC), while replacing its sitting Kangra MP (Kishan Kapoor) with Rajeev Bharadwaj, and fielding actor-turned-politician Kangana Ranaut from Mandi.
Ranaut is up against Congress heavyweight Vikramaditya Singh, son of Pratibha Singh, and it remains to be seen whether the political greenhorn can successfully take on the scion.
The ruling Congress is hoping to translate its 2022 assembly poll victory into a Lok Sabha poll success in all the four seats of Kangra, Hamirpur, Mandi and Shimla.
According to the data shared by the Election Commission, there are over 1.70 lakh voters across the state aged between 18 and 19 years who will be voting for the first time.