Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Mangal Singh Dhurve was on Thursday declared elected from Ghoradongri Assembly constituency in Betul district of Madhya Pradesh, defeating Pratap Singh Uikey of the Congress by a majority of by 13,182 votes. The byelection was held on May 30.
The counting of votes had started at 8 am at Betul's School of Excellence premises amid tight security. The counting was done in 17 rounds. The byelection was caused by the death of BJP member Sajjan Singh.
The constituency had seen a voter turnout of 74.48 per cent, out of which 76.59 per cent were male and 72.27 per cent female. Dhurve won the Ghoradongri seat (Scheduled Tibes) by defeating his closest contender Pratap Singh Uikey of the Indian National Congress. A total of seven candidates were in the fray. The constituency has 2,19,404 voters including 1,12,313 men, 1,07,083 women and eight third genders. In the 2013 Assembly polls, BJP candidate Sajjan Singh had won the seat and this time as well, the saffron party has managed to retain the seat.
Madhya Pradesh BJP state President Nandkumar Singh Chouhan and newly-appointed general secretary (Organisation) Suhas Bhagat have congratulated the voters and expressed happiness about the election of the party's candidate again.
Uikey polled 49,546 votes, while Dhurve secured 60,436 votes, a poll official from the constituency said.