BJP candidate leads by more than 2,000 votes in Bageshwar bypoll

Dehradun: BJP candidate Parwati Dass was leading by 2,041 votes over the Congress' Basant Kumar as counting of votes polled in the Bageshwar assembly bypoll progressed on Thursday.

At the end of the 10th round of counting, the BJP candidate had polled 25,094 votes while the Congress candidate got 23,053 votes, Bageshwar District Magistrate Anuradha Pal said.

There will be 14 rounds of counting, she said.

Polling to the reserved SC seat in the Kumaon Division was held on September 5 when 55.44 per cent of the nearly 1.2 lakh voters exercised the franchise.

The seat fell vacant after the death of MLA and cabinet minister Chandan Ram Das in April this year. He represented the constituency four times since 2007.

Besides Dass, who is the wife of the former MLA Chandan Das, and Kumar, Bhagvati Prasad of the Samajwadi Party, Arjun Dev of the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal and Bhagwat Kohli of the Uttarakhand Parivartan Party contested the poll.

The seat has seen straight contests between arch rivals BJP and Congress in successive elections over the years.

The BJP is in power in Uttarakhand with a two-thirds majority so the results of this by-election will not have any bearing on the government.

But political observers feel that it will be a referendum on the Dhami government's decisions like the formation of an expert committee to draft a Uniform Civil Code, enacting stricter laws on forced conversion and on irregularities recruitment examinations, and a crackdown against illegal encroachments.

The BJP has 46 MLAs in the 70-member Uttarakhand assembly, the Congress has 19, while two are from the Bahujan Samaj Party and two are independents.

One seat is vacant for which the bypoll was held.