NEW DELHI, March 1: The Congress party wrested power from the Bharatiya Janata party on Saturday in Himachal Pradesh state assembly polls, seen as a pointer to how the parties may fare in national elections.

The victory was a comeback for Congress, which lost heavily in December to the BJP in Gujarat, torn by communal killings.

With five more states, including Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, set to vote this year and national polls due next year, analysts had seen the vote in Himachal Pradesh, a small hill state of six million, as a barometer of the BJP’s popularity.

“It’s most encouraging...a matter of great happiness,” Sonia Gandhi, the chief of the Congress party, said after results were announced in Himachal Pradesh and three tiny northeastern states.

Congress won 40 seats in the 68-member Himachal Pradesh assembly, nine more than in the previous assembly. The BJP took 16, down from 31.

In the remote northeast, racked by separatist and tribal revolts, Congress retained power in Meghalaya, but lost its majority in Nagaland, where the rebel-backed Nagaland People’s Front made big gains. The communist Left Front held on to power in its bastion of Tripura.

After a string of defeats in earlier state polls, the BJP swept Gujarat on a hardline Hindu platform, reviving its hopes of retaining power in the nation of more than one billion.

The BJP’s critics had said they feared the Gujarat victory would prompt the party to spread its Hindu revivalist agenda, undermining India’s officially secular status.

Political analyst Inder Malhotra, former editor of the Pioneer daily, said the Congress win had “given a jolt to the idea that hardline Hinduism is the magic formula for the BJP”.

BJP spokesman Pramod Mahajan played down the loss, saying Himachal Pradesh has traditionally turned on ruling parties. It was “the anti-incumbency factor”, he said.—Reuters