The Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly election, 2017 was held on 9 November 2017 to elect all 68 members of the

Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly The Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly (Vidhan Sabha) is the unicameral legislature of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. The seat of the Assembly is at Shimla, the capital of the state. There are 68 Members of Legislative Assembly, al ...

. The term of the previous Legislative Assembly ended on 7 January 2017. Since 2012, the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party, or simply the Congress, is a political parties in India, political party in India with deep roots in most regions of India. Founded on 28 December 1885, it was the first mo ...

Party was in power in the outgoing assembly with 36 seats. The lone opposition party was Bharatiya Janata Party. The

Constitution of India The Constitution of India is the supreme law of India, legal document of India, and the longest written national constitution in the world. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures ...

states that the term of Legislative Assemblies is five years, at maximum. The term of current Legislative Assembly ends on 7 January 2018. The previous election, held in

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

resulted in

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

gaining majority of seats and

Virbhadra Singh Virbhadra Singh (; 23 June 19348 July 2021) was an Indian politician who served 6 terms and 21 years as the 4th Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh. A leader of the Indian National Congress party, he was elected 9 times as a Member of Legislati ...

becoming

Chief Minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union ter ...

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; Sanskrit: ''himācāl prādes;'' "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a States and union territories of India, state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen Indian Himalayan ...

, as a state of

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

follows

Parliamentary system A parliamentary system, or parliamentary democracy, is a form of government where the head of government (chief executive) derives their Election, democratic legitimacy from their ability to command the support ("confidence") of a majority of t ...

of government similar to other states. The Government is responsible to the Assembly and stays in power only if it has the support of majority members. Elections take place on a

first past the post First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or First-preference votes, first-preference, and the cand ...

basis, the candidate with the most votes wins the seat regardless of an absolute majority. Every citizen of the state, who is 18 and above is eligible to vote. The Governor then invites the leader of the largest party or coalition to form the government. As is common in most other first past the post electoral systems, the state's politics are dominated by two parties – the

and

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; , ) is a political party in India and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. BJP emerged out from Syama Prasad Mukherjee's ...

. State elections in India are often fought on central issues, and the results are regarded as a referendum on the

central government A central government is the government that is a controlling power over a unitary state. Another distinct but sovereign political entity is a federal government, which may have distinct powers at various levels of government, authorized or deleg ...

's policies. This is especially true in the case of states where the two national parties – Congress and BJP are in direct contest with each other. The state units of the parties are not completely independent and the central authority of the parties has a considerable influence over candidate selection and campaigning. However, state issues do tend to dominate the discourse. The Congress party has projected its current

as its Chief Ministerial candidate for the elections. BJP announced

Prem Kumar Dhumal Prem Kumar Dhumal (pronounced ; born 10 April 1944) is an Indian politician who has twice served as the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, from March 1998 to March 2003 and again from 1 January 2008 to 25 December 2012. He was the Bharatiya Ja ...

as its Chief Ministerial candidate. Dhumal, however, lost the election so eventually the BJP made Jai Ram Thakur the Chief Minister of state, who won from the Seraj constituency. In the 17th Assembly segment, Tashigang village becomes the highest polling station at an altitude of 15256 feet. The polling station falls in Buddhist-dominated Lahul-Spiti that form the Mandi Lok Sabha seat, the second-largest constituency in India. Situated at about 29 Kilometres from the India-China border, the polling station covers two villages - Tashigang and Gets. As per the revised electoral roll, the two villages have 48 Voters of which 30 are men and 18 women.

Preparations for elections

VVPAT-fitted electronic voting machines were used in all of the 7,521 polling stations, the first time that the entire state will see the implementation of VVPAT to ensure greater transparency to the voter. Over 5 million voters are registered in the state. VVPAT slips were counted in 2 polling stations each across all 68 Himachal Pradesh constituencies. India's first voter, Shyam Saran Negi, voted for the 29th time at Kalpa polling station in Kinnaur.

Tibetan voters

Indian electoral rules allow any citizen of India above 18 years of age to vote in any

states and union territories of India India is a federalism, federal union comprising 28 federated state, states and 8 union territory, union territories, for a total of 36 subnational entities. The states and union territories are further subdivided into 800 List of districts ...

, provided he/she is a resident of that state. India has a large

Tibetan diaspora The Tibetan diaspora is the relocation of Tibetan people from Tibet, their land of origin, to other nation states to live as exiles and refugees in communities. The diaspora of Tibetan people began in the early 1950s, peaked after the 1959 Tibe ...

that fled from

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

along with the

Dalai Lama The Dalai Lama (, ; ) is the head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The term is part of the full title "Holiness Knowing Everything Vajradhara Dalai Lama" (圣识一切瓦齐尔达喇达赖喇嘛) given by Altan Khan, the first Shu ...

Dharamshala Dharamshala (, ; also spelled Dharamsala) is a town in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. It serves as the winter capital of the state and the administrative headquarters of the Kangra district since 1855. The town also hosts the Tibeta ...

, a city in

, is the capital of the

Central Tibetan Administration The Central Tibetan Administration (, , ) is the government-in-exile of Tibet, based in Dharamshala, India. It comprises a judiciary branch, a legislative branch, and an executive branch, and offers support and services to the Tibetan exile c ...

. The Government has allowed Tibetans born in India between 1950 and 1987 to vote in the elections. This however, does not affect their relationship with the CTA.

Candidate list

BJP
declared list of 68 candidates on 18 October 2017 which includes 14 first timers with 21 new faces.

Schedule

Opinion polls

Results

The results were declared on 18 December 2017.

Results by District

Results by Constituency

References

{{Himachal Pradesh elections

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

2017 State Assembly elections in India November 2017 in India