Ruling Samajwadi Party get another shot in the arm when it’s candidate Urmila Rajpoot retained the Charkhari assembly seat by defeating her nearest Bharatiya Janta Party rival. She defeated Akhilesh Rajpoot by over 41,000 votes in a triangular contest. The results were announced here on Wednesday afternoon.
While the winner SP candidate received 82,159 votes, the BJP nominee got 41,210 votes. Congress candidate Ramjeevan received 36,513 votes. An estimated over 48 per cent of the voters of the total 3.31 lakh used their franchise in by-election and except for the above three, remaining five candidates lost their deposits.
The SP candidate is the wife of Kaptan Singh Rajpoot, whose conviction in a murder case is the reason for the by-poll. In the last Charkhari bypoll held in September last year. Kaptan Singh had won the seat by defeating Congress candidate Ramjeevan by 50,805 votes. The votes of SP candidate have declined by around 13,000 when last time they got 95,008 votes. Similarly, the vote share of Congress has also declined from 44,203 to 36,513 this time with the same candidate contesting in both the by-polls.
However, the vote share of BJP rise to 41,210 from 38,786 this time. Interestingly, by-election in the seat is being held for the second time in a year after Kaptan Singh Rajpoot was disqualified following his conviction in a murder case. Rajpoot had wrested the seat from BJP, after the sitting MlA and present Union Minister Uma Bharti was elected to lok Sabha from Jhansi seat in 2014. Uma Bharti got elected to Charkhari seat in 2012 assemly polls.