Shimla: As the counting of votes ended in Himachal Pradesh, Dhaniram Shandil is the oldest, while Chaitanya Sharma is the youngest candidate. An 82-year-old sitting MLA Dhaniram Shandil, who contested from the Solan seat on a Congress ticket, won the poll yet again. He got a total of 29,523 votes. He has defeated the BJP candidate and his son-in-law, Rajesh Kashyap, for the second time in a row. Shandil served in the Indian Army from 1962 to 1996. In 1994, he won the Lok Sabha elections on behalf of the Himachal Vikas Congress Party and in 2004, he won the Lok Sabha elections on a Congress ticket.
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Apart from Dhaniram Shandil, two more aged leaders also tried their luck in the election. The 78-year-old Chandra Kumar from the Jawali seat in Kangra and 75-year-old Kishori Lal from the Baijnath seat was also in the fray. But, both these candidates had to face defeat. A total of 412 candidates contested the elections.
The 27-year-old Chaitanya Sharma, the youngest candidate in the Himachal election, won the Gagret Assembly seat on a Congress ticket. He defeated BJP's Rajesh Thakur by a margin of 15,685 votes. Chaitanya Sharma is an advocate by profession. This is Chaitanya Sharma's first assembly election and he has already won.
