Ruling parties on Monday won the assembly bypolls with the BJP retaining both seats in Goa while AAP retained the Bawana seat in Delhi by defeating the BJP by a huge margin and the TDP snatching the Nandyal seat from YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh.
In Goa, where BJP retained power in the Aseembly earlier this year, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar won from Panaji with a margin of 4,803 votes while Health Minister Vishwajit Rane won the Valpoi seat with a margin of 10,066 votes. Parrikar, who was Defence Minister at the Centre, was despatched to Goa amidst government formation in the state. Parrikar said he would resign his seat in the Rajya Sabha shortly.
Winning the seat for the sixth time from Panaji, Parrikar polled 9,862 votes beating his nearest rival Congress' Girish Chodankar, who netted 5,059 votes. Anand Shirodkar of the Goa Suraksha Manch came a distant third with 220 votes.
In Valpoi, the winning BJP candidate Rane got 16,167 votes, while his rival from the Congress, Roy Naik netted 6,101 votes.
"I was expecting to win," Parrikar told reporters after the victory.
Chodankar said he may have lost the polls, but he was touched by the manner in which Panaji voters had interacted with him.
Nearly 75 per cent voting was recorded during the August 23 bypolls in Goa.
The bypoll in Panaji was necessitated by the resignation of sitting BJP MLA Sidarth Kuncolienkar to enable Parrikar contest the seat as required under law to become an MLA in six months of taking over as chief minister.
In Valpoi, the bypoll was held following the resignation of Rane as a Congress MLA. He subsequently joined the BJP and joined the cabinet as Health Minister.
In Delhi, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) retained the Bawana seat by winning the bypoll with a margin of over 24,000 votes, defeating former party legislator Ved Prakash, who had defected to the BJP amd resigned the seat causing the by election.
AAP candidate Ram Chandra got 59,886 votes against 35,834 votes of the BJP's Ved Prakash. Congress candidate Surender Kumar finished third with 31,919 votes.
The AAP candidate received 45.39 per cent of the total votes cast, while the BJP and Congress candidates got 27.16 and 24.19 per cent of the remaining votes.
Andhra Pradesh's ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) snatched the Nandyal Assembly seat by defeating YSR candidate with a huge margin.
TDP's Bhuma Brahmananda Reddy defeated his nearest rival Silpa Mohan Reddy of YSR Congress party by over 27,000 votes. Brahmananda Reddy polled 97,076 votes while Silpa Mohan Reddy secured 69,610 votes. The Congress finished far behind with just 1,382 votes.
In what was considered a prestige battle for both the parties, Brahmananda Reddy took the lead from the very first round of counting. Except in the 16th round, the TDP candidate maintained the majority till the completion of counting in 19 rounds.
About 80 per cent of the 2.16 lakh voters had cast their votes in the bypoll held on August 23.
In 2014, Bhuma Nagi Reddy of the YSR Congress had won the seat by a majority of just 3,604 votes over Silpa Mohan Reddy, who had then contested as a TDP candidate. Nagi Reddy, who crossed over to the TDP last year, died in April, causing the vacancy.
--IANS
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