After keeping parties guessing for the first few hours of voting, Himachal Pradesh appears to have continued its tradition of voting out the incumbent as the Congress appears headed for a victory in the state.
The grand old party surged ahead of the ruling BJP, winning or leading in 39 of 68 assembly seats.
In the latest results and trends available, the Congress won 26 seats and was leading in 13, while the ruling BJP had registered a win on 14 seats and was leading in 12 others.
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Three Independents also emerged victorious. The Aam Aadmi Party failed to open its account. Himachal Pradesh has not voted any incumbent government to power since 1985.
The Congress has convened a meeting of all its newly-elected MLAs in Himachal Pradesh in Chandigarh after the declaration of results on Thursday, and the meet was likely to pass a resolution authorising the Congress president to elect the CLP leader.
As trends indicated a comfortable win for the grand old party, AICC in charge of Himachal Pradesh Rajeev Shukla said the party was happy that it is getting an opportunity to form the government in the state and asserted that it will do everything to fulfil the 10 guarantees made to the people of the state and would provide better governance to people.
(With input from PTI)