Bye-election results: Cong wins Arunachal, BJP wins Rajkot-West

Congress candidate Gabriel Denwang Wangsu won the Kanubari Assembly seat in Arunachal Pradesh in a close contest defeating his lone rival Rongnai Maham of BJP by 885 votes in the October 15 by-poll.

Deputy Chief Electoral Officer D J Bhattacharjee said Wangsu polled 5,231 votes and Maham 4,346 votes.

Journalist-turned-politician, Wangsu had contested unsuccessfully from the constituency in 2009 and 2014 as a People's Party of Arunachal candidate and an Independent respectively.

The bye-election was held following the death of sitting Congress MLA Newlai Tingkhatra at Gurgaon on May 7, a month after the simultaneous state Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in the state and nine days before counting of votes.

Tingkhatra had won the seat posthumously.

With Wangsu winning from the constituency, Congress has 42 MLAs now in the 60-member Assembly, while Opposition BJP has 11 legislators. Peoples Party of Arunachal has five members. There are two Independents.

Bharatiya Janata Party has retained the Rajkot-West Assembly seat by winning the bye-election with a margin of over 23,000 votes.          

“BJP candidate Vijay Rupani won Rajkot-West Assembly seat by a margin of 23,740 votes at the end of the final 19th round," Deputy Election Officer Ketan Gandhi said.

Rupani got 81,092 votes, while Congress candidate Jayanti Kalaria managed 57,352 votes.

Interestingly, voters in the seat chose NOTA (None of the Above) as the third alternative, as 3,110 votes were polled in its favour.

Nationalist Congress Party candidate Bhavesh Lokhil stood fourth with 1,027 votes. The remaining candidates could not cross the 3-digit mark.

There were 9 candidates, including 6 independents, in fray apart from the nominees of BJP, Congress and NCP.

However, the main electoral battle was between Congress and BJP.

As per the figures of the Election Commission, out of the total 2.90 lakh registered voters in the seat, 1.42 lakh exercised their franchise during the bypoll.

The seat, once represented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had then entered Gujarat politics, fell vacant following the resignation of sitting MLA Vaju Vala after he was appointed Governor of Karnataka. The constituency has been BJP's pocket-borough since 1990.

Gujarat Chief Minister Anandi Patel recently said that the Rajkot-West by-poll was an issue of prestige for BJP and had asked the party workers to work hard to retain it.

Soon after the victory, Patel thanked the people of Rajkot and also congratulated the winner, on her twitter post.

"Thankful to people of Rajkot for reposing their trust in BJP in assembly by-election & Congratulations to Shri Vijay Rupani for the victory," she tweeted.

Rupani gave all the credit to BJP workers for the win.

"It is only because of the hard work of the BJP workers that the party has succeeded in retaining its bastion. People of Rajkot did not fall for the negative propaganda of Congress and they cast their votes as per their understanding. This is the result of that," Rupani said.

When asked whether he sees any post in Chief Minister Anandi Patel-led state government, he said, "I have been serving people for so many years and will be doing the same in the future also without having any desire for any post."

Meanwhile, Congress nominee Jayanti Kalaria accepted the defeat and said he will continue to raise the issues of poor water-supply and deteriorating condition of law and order in Rajkot.

In Odisha, Biju Janata Dal candidate Pratyusha Rajeswari Singh, widow of former MP Hemendra Chandra Singh, won the by-election for Kandhamal Lok Sabha seat trouncing BJP's Rudramadhab Ray by a whopping 2,98,868 votes.

In her maiden poll battle, Pratyusha Rajeswari secured 4,77,529 votes, while former MP from Kandhamal Ray polled 1,78,661 votes in a seven-corner contest in the communally sensitive and Maoist-hit constituency, Kandhamal district election officer, Sumant Kar said.

Congress nominee Abhimanyu Behera, a former Phulbani MLA, was pushed to the third position securing 90,536 votes in the bypoll for the constituency, spread over 4 districts of Kandhamal, Ganjam, Nayagarh and Boudh.

Bypoll in the constituency, held on October 15, was necessitated following the demise Pratyusha's husband Hemendra Chandra Singh last month, who had won the seat in the Lok Sabha polls held in April 2014 by a margin of 1,81,017 votes.

An analysis of votes cast showed that BJD bagged a lion's share of 61.5 per cent of over 7.75 lakh total votes polled, while BJP secured 23 per cent and Congress 11.7 per cent.

Others polled 3.8 per cent votes, while 1.4 per cent voters chose non of the above option.

Jubilant over the by-poll result, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who is also the president of the ruling BJD, said the huge winning margin showed the continued support extended by people of Odisha for the plans and policies of the government.

Describing her win as a victory of the people and BJD supremo, Pratyusha said she would sincerely work for the development of backward Kandhamal and to fulfil the dreams of her late husband, who hailed from the Nayagarh royal family.

BJP leader Bijay Mohapatra, who led the party's campaign in the sensitive constituency, said despite the loss the party succeeded in increasing its vote share by 11 per cent compared to last polls through 11 days of campaign.

"The bypoll result shows the political equation in the state is undergoing a transformation and BJP will play a significant role in future as Congress base appears to be getting eroded fast," Mohapatra said.

Alleging massive use of money power and official machinery by the puling BJD to win the by-poll, Congress state president Jaydev Jena said the party would overcome the bad phase as it had done in the past.

Defeated Congress nominee Behera alleged huge flow of money by both BJD and BJP, who are in power in Odisha and the Centre respectively. He said the dangerous practice adopted by these parties was posing a serious challenge for the democratic set up.

Samajwadi Party's Nahid Hasan has won the bye-elections for Kairana Assembly seat by defeating his nearest rival BJP's Anil Chouhan.

The result was declared today at Shamli, near.

Hasan got 83,984 votes, while Chouhan was polled 82,885 votes, said Returning Officer Suresh Kumar Mishra.

Congress candidate Arshad Hasan got 16,906 votes, he said.

A total of eight candidates had contested the elections.

Bypoll was held here as BJP MLA from the seat Hukum Singh was elected MP from the Kairana Lok Sabha seat.

Voting for the seat was held on October 15.