Azad wins Bhaderwah by-election, celebrations on

Bhaderwah, Apr 27 (UNI) Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad today won the Bhaderwah Assembly by-election with over 58000 votes against his nearest BJP rival Dhanatar Singh.

Mr Azad got 62072 votes against Mr Singh's 4057 in the total eight rounds of counting. There were total 66129 votes polled in the by-election on Monday last.

Mr Singh's security money was forfeited as he could not manage 10 per cent of the total votes in his favour.

Mr Azad will visit Bhaderwah this afternoon to address a public rally.

Earlier, Mr Azad had scaled the figure of 24,624 votes against Mr Singh's 1,871 in the initial rounds of counting. The counting started at 0800 hrs this morning.

Soon after the final result was announced, jubilant people thronged on the streets and started distributing sweets in the town.

The former power minister Mohammed Sharif Niaz had resigned on March one last to vacate the seat for Mr Azad, who took over as Chief Minister of the Jammu and Kashmir in November last year.

This is the second Assembly election in the political career of Mr Azad, in which he has gained a huge margin of votes.

Earlier, he had unsuccessfully contested from neighbouring Inderwal constituency of Doda district in 1977.

During that time, Mr Azad had polled 959 votes and had even lost his security deposit. The winning candidate Ghulam Mohammad Sheikh of the National Conference had polled 5296 votes while Abdul Gani Goni of the Janata Party had polled 2530 votes.

After his defeat, Mr Azad tried his hand in Centre politics. He made his way in the Congress hierarchy and held several important portfolios before coming to the state as the Chief Minister.

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