Defeats Congress candidate Manoj Rawat by 5,622 votes
PNS | DEHRADUN
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has won the crucial Kedarnath Assembly by-election. Its candidate Asha Nautiyal defeated her Congress rival Manoj Rawat by a margin of 5,622 votes. She secured 23,814 votes while Rawat got 18,192 votes in the bypoll. Surprising some political observers, independent candidate Tribhuwan Chauhan cornered 9,311 votes which according to the political observers paved the way for the BJP’s victory. The victory of Nautiyal has come as a major relief for the ruling BJP and chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami. After losing the Assembly by-elections of Manglaur and Badrinath in July this year, the BJP and Dhami were under more pressure to retain the Kedarnath seat.
Nautiyal received 23,130 in EVMs and 684 votes in the postal ballots while Manoj Rawat got 18,031 EVM and 161 postal ballot votes. The counting of votes started at 8 AM at Sports ground Agastyamuni amid tight security arrangements. The Election Commission had made arrangements for counting of EVM votes in 14 tables. In the first round Nautiyal secured 1,398 votes against 1,185 votes of Independent Tribhuwan Chauhan and 915 of Manoj Rawat. She maintained and increased her lead in every round thereafter. To everyone’s surprise, independent candidate Chauhan was in second position with 6,489 votes against 6,028 votes of Manoj Rawat and 8,555 votes of Nautiyal in the fifth round. However from the sixth round onward the contest was between Nautiyal and Rawat only.
In the bypoll 90,875 voters (44,919 male and 45,956 female) were registered and out of them 53,513 ( 25,168 male and 28,345 female) voters exercised their franchise.
The victory of Asha Nautiyal is her third win from the constituency where women voters outnumber their male counterparts. She has won from the constituency in the Assembly elections of 2002, 2027 and now in the by-election of 2024. Incidentally women candidates have won from the constituency in all occasions barring one in the year 2017 when Manoj Rawat of Congress won by a margin of only 869 votes.
