SAD candidate wins Beas assembly seat

Amritsar, Mar 14 (UNI) The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) won the Beas assembly seat, with its candidate Manjinder Singh Kang had defeating his nearest rival Jasbir Singh Dimpa of the Congress by a margin of 4,183 votes in a 12-cornered contest.

SAD wrested the seat from the Congress to take its tally to 49 seats in the 117-member Assembly. The BJP, an ally of the SAD had won 19 seats in the elections to 116 constituencies held last month, to help it form the government in alliance with the SAD.

The Congress had won 44 seats, while five were won by independents.

In the 2002 polls Dimpa had defeated Mr Kang by a margin of about 5,000 votes.

Polling in the constituency was held on March 11. A total of 1,09,160 of the 1.42 lakh electorate had exercised their franchise.

The Election Commission (EC) had postponed the elections in Beas from February 13 to March 11 following violence between SAD and Congress supporters on January 29. The violence had claimed the life of a SAD activists.

After the incident, an FIR on the statement of SAD leaders was registered against Congress candidate Dimpa, his brothers, Rajan and Harman, a SP ranking officer in the Punjab Police and 13 others. So far the police has arrested Rajan and five others including three Punjab Police personnel in the case.

UNI