Uttarakhand Bypolls: Congress wins both seats
The Congress party has emerged victorious in the bypolls for the Badrinath and Manglaur assembly seats in Uttarakhand.
Candidates Qazi Nizamuddin and Lakhpat Singh Butola led the charge in Manglaur and Badrinath respectively, maintaining a significant lead from the beginning of the counting process.
In Manglaur, Qazi Nizamuddin was ahead by 87,365 votes against BJP's Kartar Singh Bhadana during the sixth round and won the seat by a narrow margin of 400 votes.
BSP's Ubaidur Rahman, initially in contention, ultimately fell to third place. This seat became vacant after the death of BSP’s Sarwat Karim Ansari in October 2023.
In Badrinath, Lakhpat Singh Butola led by 1,935 votes against BJP's Rajendra Bhandari in the seventh round and won by over 5,000 votes. This seat was vacated after Bhandari resigned from Congress to join the BJP earlier this year.
The INDIA bloc, to which Congress belongs, also performed strongly, leading in 10 of the 13 seats where by-elections were held, with only two seats won by the BJP.
The by-elections recorded voter turnouts of 49.80% in Badrinath and 68.24% in Manglaur. However, the election process was marred by an attack against Muslim voters at the Libberheri booth in Manglaur, resulting in several injuries. Muslim voters alleged that they were stopped from voting.
Congress candidate Nizamuddin alleged that miscreants opened fire near the polling booth, although police stated there was no confirmation of this incident.
