Jammu
Bharatiya Janata Party has retained the Nagrota seat with the first timer Devyani Rana securing the Assembly constituency with a margin of more than 24,000 votes in the Assembly byelections.
Voting for the bypolls in the Nagrota Assembly constituency took place on November 11, and the counting of votes started at 8 AM on Friday.
Rana is the daughter of former BJP MLA Devender Rana, who died on October 31, 2024, a week after taking oath as MLA of the J-K Assembly. Rana had been a two-time MLA of Nagrota. While he won the 2024 polls under the BJP ticket, he was part of the JKNC and won under their ticket in 2014.
Devyani Rana is the daughter of two-time MLA from the constituency Devinder Singh Rana, who died suddenly, leaving the seat vacant. She is also the niece of Union Minister Dr Jatinder Singh.
"I am very lucky that I got the support of the BJP. I would like to thank every leader and worker of the BJP, as well as the family of Rana sir, for their collective efforts in ensuring that I won the election. In 2024, Nagrota had given the blessing to Rana sir, and today, too, the people of Nagrota have blessed me," the BJP candidate told ANI here.
Devyani Rana beat nine other candidates contesting for the seat. The BJP candidate beat the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (India) candidate Harsh Dev Singh with a margin of 24,000 votes. While Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC) candidate Shamim Begum trailed by a margin of around 26,000 votes.
Counting of votes for the bypolls of around eight Assembly constituencies across six states and one Union Territory took place on Friday morning, while voting took place on November 11.
Counting of votes for two constituencies in J-K's Budgam and Nagrota took place on Friday. Nagrota saw a head-to-head contest between the BJP and the National Conference (NC), with the latter fielding Shamim Begum.
Polling for the bye-elections was held in Budgam following the resignation of Omar Abdullah from the constituency. Chief Minister Abdullah chose to retain the Ganderbal constituency and vacate Budgam after winning both the seats in the 2024 assembly elections.
.webp "Prime Minister Narendra Modi")
.webp "West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad")
.png)
.webp)
.webp)