By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 8 Sep: BJP managed to retain the Bageshwar Assembly constituency by winning the bypoll, for which voting was held on 5 September and the counting done today.
BJP candidate Parvati Das won the by-election defeating Congress candidate Basant Kumar by a margin of 2405 votes. The win can’t be stated to be a huge one considering the fact this is considered a bastion for the party which has been winning the seat continuously since 2007 and also that the current candidate was the widow of the late MLA Chandan Ramdas, whose death in April this year had necessitated the by-election on this constituency.
Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami as well as the winning candidate described the win as a tribute to the late Chandan Ramdas.
The victory margin for the BJP candidate may not be huge but is significant and the win does come as a fresh boost to the image of Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami. He is being credited by the party for the win. So far, the Congress has not been fortunate to win any elections in the state since Dhami has taken over.
As the counting of the votes began this morning, for a while it did appear that Congress may be able to shock the ruling party. For the first two rounds, Congress candidate Basant Kumar led the race and Parvati Das was trailing. By the end of the third round, she barely managed to cover up the deficit and by the end of fourth round she was leading, but it was close fight for the next few rounds and the margin of difference kept on fluctuating. A total of 14 rounds of counting were done.
In the case of postal ballots, she was way ahead of her rival. At the end of 14th round, she was declared the winner.
Reacting to the party candidate’s win in Bageshwar, CM Pushkar Singh Dhami said that he wished to express his gratitude to the voters of Bageshwar and to congratulate Parvati Das. He asserted that this victory is a tribute to the late Chandan Das. The CM promised the government would complete his unfinished business. He also expressed his gratitude to the people of Bageshwar for supporting the policies of PM Modi in the country and Uttarakhand.
The winning candidate, Parvati Das, also described her win as people’s tribute to her husband late Chandan Ramdas who not only represented the Bageshwar seat continuously since 2007 onwards but was also a minister in the Dhami Government.
