A hung house
What happened
This election left the state without any single party in full control.
The Indian National Congress finished ahead with 31 of the 68 seats.
That was short of a majority, leaving a hung house — a result where no single party wins enough seats to govern alone.
Its closest rival, Bharatiya Janata Party, was right behind with 29 seats.
What changed
The party that had swept the previous election lost almost all of its support this time.
Most of those seats flowed directly to BJP, which picked up 24 of them from Janata Party alone.
Even so, the INC finished short of the 35-seat mark needed to govern alone, leaving a hung house.
Notable numbers
A few numbers from the results stand out on their own.
Rajnagar, Himachal Pradesh saw the tightest fight of the night, decided by a margin — how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second — of just 42 votes.
Simla, Himachal Pradesh drew the largest field of the election, with 24 candidates on the ballot.
At the other end, Jubbal-Kotkhai, Himachal Pradesh was the widest win of the night, with a margin of 71.6% of the vote.
Nurpur, Himachal Pradesh recorded the highest turnout of the election, 82.1% — the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot.
The backdrop
Independent candidates and smaller parties held real sway in this fragmented result.