Ferozabad:
In a major blow to Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar
Pradesh, Congress candidate and cinestar Raj Babbar defeated Dimple
the daughter-in-law of party president Mulayam Singh Yadav in
Ferozabad by-elections when the results were announced today.
Raj Babbar is
declared elected from the Ferozabad Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh,
drubbing Samajwadi Party nominee Dimple Yadav by a margin of 85,343
votes in a triangular contest.
The
Congress nominee received 3,12,728 votes whereas Dimple could get
just 2,27,385 votes in the high profile by-elections. BSP candidate
S P Singh Baghel was at the third spot with 2,13,571 votes.
BJP's Bhanu Pratap Singh Chauhan lost his deposit, getting only
9,261 votes.
In
the Lok Sabha elections held in May, SP candidate Akhilesh Yadav had
won the seat by a margin of over 67,000 votes. Dimple is the wife of
Akhilesh, who had vacated the seat after being elected both from
Ferozabad and Kannauj Lok Sabha seats. It was party General
Secretary Amar Singh on whose behest SP decided to field Dimple
against Congress candidate Raj Babbar.
One
of the front leaders in SP earlier Raj Babbar revolted against the
party and fought the past Lok Sabha elections from adjoining
Fatehpur Sikri seat. He was defeated in the election.
This time, Rahul Gandhi - the high
profile Congress General Secretary personally visited Ferozabad to
campiagn for Raj Babbar.
"Elect Raj Babbar who will sit next to
me in the Lok Sabha and will ensure that you get all the facilities
in the constituency", Rahul Gandhi had said during the campaigning.
Rahul's extensive campaigning for Raj
Babbar - a SP rebel had panicked the SP top brass and they tried
hard to hold the ground in the constituency from where its candidate
a couple of months back had won by a huge margin. Their every
game-plan, however, failed when the counting of votes began this
morning and Raj Babbar maintained the lead from the round one.
Ultimately, the election officials declared Raj Babbar winner by
more than 85,000 votes.
TC-Cong win in West
Bengal
Meanwhile, Trinamul Congress-Congress
combine almost swept the elections in West Bengal when the results
were announced today. Together, they won 8 of the 10 seats in the
assembly bypolls in West Bengal, handing out another humiliating
defeat to Left Front major, CPM, which drew a blank.
Cong retains 3 seat
in Kerala
In Kerala too Congress showed an
impressive performance and retained all the three seats counting of
which were done today.
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