Himachal Pradesh Polls: Confident Of Winning 40-45 Seats, Says State Congress Chief Pratibha Singh

Pratibha Singh exuded confidence on her party of winning 40-45 seats in 68 members' Assembly. After casting her vote at Rampur in Shimla in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly polls.

Congress MP and Himachal unit chief Pratibha Singh.

Source : Twitter/ANI

Congress MP and Himachal unit chief Pratibha Singh on Saturday exuded confidence in her party of winning 40-45 seats in 68 members' Assembly. After casting her vote at Rampur in Shimla in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly polls, Pratibha Singh appealed to vote for development and work.

"We'd like to tell people of Himachal Pradesh to vote for development & work. Congress always worked for development & in the time to come only Congress can take that work forward in the state. We're confident of winning 40-45 seats," Pratibha Singh said.

On Saturday, Pratibha Singh and party MLA Vikramaditya cast their vote at Rampur in Shimla in the assembly polls. Vikramaditya, a son of former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, and a sitting MLA from Shimla Rural was once again entrusted by the Congress and given a ticket against BJP's Ravi Mehta, AAP's Prem Thakur.

"We would like to request the people to take Himachal forward and cast their votes in the public interest, in the interest of Himachal Pradesh - to make it the best state in the country," Vikramaditya Singh said. Pratibha Singh, representing the Lok Sabha seat, has been campaigning for Congress' Chetram Thakur. It would be interesting to see if she can pull off the turf which presently belongs to the BJP (Jairam Thakur).

Voting to elect the new government in Himachal Pradesh spread across 68 seats in the state began on Saturday at 8 am amid tight security in place. A total of 55,92,828 electors who can cast their votes till 5 pm today will decide the fate of 412 candidates who are in the fray.

Out of the total number of electorates, 27,37,845 are women, 28,54,945 are men and 38 were third-gender. This time, the representation of woman candidates is 24. The campaigning by political parties ended on November 10, following which it's up to the electorate of Himachal Pradesh to decide the political fate of the candidates today.

The fight is in between the ruling BJP in the state which is looking to retain power ditching the trend of the alternate party coming to power every five years since 1982, and Congress which is banking on its '10 guarantees' that the party listed out in its manifesto to take them home. Aam Aadmi Party is in line looking to leave a mark in the state and thus contesting on all the 68 seats alone.

The challenge for the ruling BJP will be to buck anti-incumbency and change the trend of the alternate government. Besides these three parties, parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India (CPI), and Rashtriya Devbhumi Party (RDP) are in the fray.

(With ANI Inputs)