Jammu, Nov 14 (IANS) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate, Devyani Rana on Friday won the Nagrota Assembly bypoll in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) defeating her nearest rival, Harsh Dev Singh of Panthers Party.

Devyani Rana was declared the winner in the Nagrota Assembly bypoll after she defeated her nearest rival, Harsh Dev Singh of the J&K National Panthers Party (JKNPP) by a margin of over 21,000 votes.

The candidate of the ruling National Conference (NC) party, Shamim Begum finished a distant third with just over 10,000 votes polled in her favour.

Celebrations started in the BJP camp in Jammu immediately after the victory of the party candidate was announced in Nagrota.

Devyani Rana is the daughter of late Devender Singh Rana, who won the Nagrota seat in the 2024 Assembly elections.

The bye-election became necessary because of the death of party veteran Devender Singh Rana on October 31, 2024.

In the 90-member J&K Legislative Assembly, the BJP has 29 seats against the NC which has 41 seats.

Counting is going on at present in the Budgam Assembly constituency in the Valley. After the 6th round, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Aga Syed Muntazir Mehdi was leading with 2,100 votes over his NC rival Aga Syed Mehmood.

The Budgam bye-election was held after the NC candidate, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah resigned from here. Omar had won two seats, Ganderbal and Budgam in the 2024 Assembly elections.

He chose to resign from the Budgam seat and represent Ganderbal constituency in the Legislative Assembly.

Significantly, NC Lok Sabha member, Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, who belongs to Budgam and is a Shia Muslim leader, chose to remain away from the NC poll campaign in Budgam due to differences with the party leadership.

The Congress, with six MLAs, decided to support the NC government headed by Omar Abdullah from outside without joining it.

Five of the six Independent candidates who won the 2024 Assembly elections, later joined the NC.

–IANS

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