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 seat of the Vidhan Sabha is at Shimla, the capital of the state. The Vidhan Sabha comprises 68 Members of Legislative Assembly, which include 68 members directly elected from single-seat constituency. Its term is 5 years, unless sooner dissol ...

. 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 but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

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 (IAST: ) is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental ri ...

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 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...

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 a ...

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 Legislat ...

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 terri ...

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...

, as a state of

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

follows

Parliamentary system A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of the ...

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 In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

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 Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...

. 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 dele ...

'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 as their Chief Ministerial candidate. Dhumal lost his seat from the Sujanpur constituency. Eventually, the BJP made

Jai Ram Thakur Jai Ram Thakur (born 6 January 1965) is an Indian politician, and was the Chief Minister of the state of Himachal Pradesh from 2017 to 2022. He is a five-time MLA in the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly, winning continuously since 1998 an ...

the Chief Minister 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 Voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) or verified paper record (VPR) is a method of providing feedback to voters using a ballotless voting system. A VVPAT is intended as an independent verification system for voting machines designed to allo ...

-fitted

electronic voting machines An electronic voting machine is a voting machine based on electronics. Two main technologies exist: '' optical scanning'' and '' direct recording'' (DRE). Optical scanning In an optical scan voting system, or marksense, each voter's choices ...

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 Shyam Saran Negi (1 July 1917 – 5 November 2022) was an Indian school teacher in Kalpa, Himachal Pradesh, who cast the first vote in the 1951 general election in India — the nation's first election since the end of the British Rule in 1947 ...

, 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 federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories, with a total of 36 entities. The states and union territories are further subdivided into districts and smaller administrative divisions. History Pre-indepen ...

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

Tibetan diaspora The Tibetan diaspora are the diaspora of Tibetan people living outside Tibet. Tibetan emigration has three separate stages. The first stage was in 1959 following the 14th Dalai Lama's defection to Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh, India. The s ...

that fled from

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

along with the

Dalai Lama Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current Dal ...

Dharamshala Dharamshala (; also spelled Dharamsala) is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh, India. It serves as administrative headquarters of the Kangra district after being relocated from Kangra, a city located away from Dharamshala, in 1855. The ...

, a city in

, is the capital of the

Central Tibetan Administration The Central Tibetan Administration (, , ), often referred to as the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, is a non-profit political organization based in Dharamshala, India. Its organization is modeled after an elective parliamentary government, compo ...

. 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 2017 State Assembly elections in India November 2017 events in India