Uttarakhand: Congress wins Bhagwanpur bypoll, secures majority mark on its own

Dehradun, Apr 15: The ruling Congress in Uttarakhand today recorded a victory in the bypoll to the Bhagwanpur seat with its candidate Mamata Rakesh defeating BJP rival Rajpal Singh by nearly 37,000 votes, thus propelling the party to the majority mark in the state Assembly on its own.

Mamata garnered 59,205 votes whereas Rajpal polled 22,296 votes at the end of the last round of counting today, Chief Election Officer Radha Raturi said.

Widow of former MLA and cabinet minister Surendra Rakesh, she was contesting the election on a Congress ticket. The bypoll to the seat was necessitated after the death of Surendra in February, who had won the seat in 2012 Assembly elections on a BSP ticket.

He was a cabinet minister in the Harish Rawat government. The victory is significant for Congress in the state as it has helped the party secure the elusive majority figure of 36 on its own in the 70-member House.

The coalition government headed by Rawat existed on the prop of seven-member Progressive Democratic Front (PDF), which Surendra was a part of.

Rest of the candidates in the fray, all of them Independents, lost their deposits, with Pritam Singh getting 269 votes followed by Darshani Devi Rathour with 221 votes, Gurmel, 211 votes and Deepak Surya getting 139 votes, Raturi said. Bypoll was held to the Bhagwanpur reserved SC seat in Haridwar district on April 11.

This is the fourth assembly bypoll which the Congress has won in the state with Harish Rawat in the saddle.

PTI