Congress party on Sunday captured one out of two seats in the Asse-mbly byelections in Hary-ana, it captured Ratia seat from INLD when Congress’s Jarnail Singh defeated Sarfi Devi by margin over 12,000 votes. With it the Congress has increased its tally and now has 46 members in the state Assembly.
However, it had to face defeat in Aadampur constituency where Ms Renuka Bishnoi wife of HJC president and Hisar MP, Kuldeep Bishnoi, won by a margin of 22,669 votes defeating her nearest rival and former MLA Kulbir Singh Beniwal of Congress. In neighboring state of Himachal it was mixed bag for both the Congress and BJP as both the parties snatched a seat from each other. In Renuka, Haridya Ram of BJP defeated Vinay Kumar of Congress by 3,526 votes. In Nalagarh. Lakhwinder Singh Rana of Congress defeated BJP’S Gurnam Kaur by 1958 votes.
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BJD retains Umerkote seat
Akshaya Kumar Sahoo
Bhubaneswar, Dec. 4
The ruling Biju Janata Dal on Sunday retained the Umerkote Assembly seat in Orissa by defeating the rival BJP candidate by a huge margin of 21,061 votes.
The winning BJD candidate Subhas Ganda polled 54,713 votes, while the BJP nominee Dharmu Ganda secured 33, 652 votes. The Congress finished the poor third with its candidate getting 32,887 votes.
“This is a victory of the BJD and its leadership Naveen Patnaik. I will try to live up to the expectations of people of my constituency,” Mr Ganda said after the results were declared. Bypoll to the seat was held on November 30 following assassination of the sitting BJD legislator Jagabandhu Majhi on September 24.
“I would like to thank the people of Umerkote for reposing their faith in the BJD. It was vote for all the good work of the state government has been doing all these years,” chief minister Naveen Patnaik said.
Mr Patnaik, who is still nursing a leg fracture, had campaigned in the constituency for a day. The BJP, in its reaction, alleged that the ruling party rigged the results by misutilisation of government machinery and inducement. “From the day one when we were told that electronic voting machines (EVMs) would be used in Umerkote byelections, we were sure that BJD will win the poll. You cannot expect free and fair elections when EVMs placed under the government custody are used in the polling,” said BJP state vice president Ashok Sahu.
PCC president Niranjan Patnaik attributed the BJD’s victory to “misuse” of government machinery.