The Congress on Monday announced its candidates for the by-polls in Himachal Pradesh's Hamirpur and Nalagarh assembly constituencies while the party candidate for Dehra seat is yet to be declared.

Congress general secretary K C Venugopal released the list after approval from party chief Mallikarjun Kharge.

The Congress declared the names of Pushpinder Verma from Hamirpur and Hardeep Singh Baba from Nalagarh. Verma and Baba would face their old rivals Krishan Lal Thakur and Ashish Sharma, who had defeated them in the 2022 assembly polls as independents.

The by-elections to these three assembly seats, which fell vacant after the resignation of three Independent legislatures who had voted in favour of the BJP nominee Harsh Mahajan along with six Congress rebels on February 27 and later joined the BJP on March 23, would be held on July 10.

Three independent MLAs had submitted their resignations on March 22. Himachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathani accepted their resignations on June 3 after the Lok Sabha elections and by-elections in six assembly seats were over.

In the 2022 assembly polls, Ashish Sharma had defeated Pushpendra Verma by 12,899 votes while K L Thakur had defeated Hardeep Singh Baba, a five-time Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) president of the Himachal unit, by a margin of 13,264 votes.

The BJP has already fielded all the three independent MLAs namely Ashish Sharma (Hamirpur), Hoshiyar Singh (Dehra) and K L Thakur ( Nalagarh).

K L Thakur is a two time MLA from Nalagarh. He won in 2012 on the BJP ticket and in 2022 as an Independent.

Hoshiyar Singh is also a two time MLA from Dehra. He won the assembly elections in 2017 and 2022 as an Independent while Sharma is a first time MLA from Hamirpur.

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