Apna Dal (Sonelal) defeats Samajwadi Party in Suar assembly by-election

Lucknow: Breaching the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party's last citadel in Uttar Pradesh's Rampur district, ruling BJP-ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) on Saturday won the Suar assembly by-election by a margin of 8,724 votes.

Shafeek Ahmed Ansari of the Apna Dal (Sonelal) securing a little over 50 per cent of the total votes polled in the bypoll, according to information available in the Election Commission website.

As per the data available on the website, Ansari polled 68,630 votes and his nearest rival and Samajwadi Party (SP) nominee Anuradha Chauhan bagged 59,906 votes.

More than 1.35 lakh votes were polled in the Suar assembly by-election held on May 10.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Congress did not field candidates from this seat.

The Suar assembly seat fell vacant in February following the disqualification of two-term legislator and SP leader Azam Khan's son Abdullah Azam Khan after a Moradabad court sentenced him to two years in jail in a 15-year-old case.

The Rampur assembly constituency as well as the Rampur parliamentary constituency, both Azam Khan's strongholds, were won by the BJP.

In last year's Uttar Pradesh assembly election, Abdullah Azam Khan had defeated Apna Dal (Sonelal)'s Haidar Ali Khan by a margin of over 61,000 votes in Suar.