The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal on Tuesday convincingly won the Khadoor Sahib assembly by-election in Punjab.
Akali Dal candidate Ravinder Singh Brahmpura defeated his nearest rival by a margin of 65,664 votes, election department officials said here.
He polled 83,080 out of the 107,341 votes polled. His nearest rival, Bhupinder Singh, an independent candidate, polled 17,416 votes. There were seven candidates in the fray. As many as 58 percent of the over 1.87 lakh electorate had cast their votes in the by-poll.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal described the result of the Khadoor Sahib by-election as a “massive victory of positive agenda of peace, communal harmony, brotherhood and development in the state”.
The polls were held on 13 February amidst a boycott of the election by Congress and AAP, making it a one-sided contest for the Akali Dal. However, the Akali Dal leadership is seeing the by-poll victory as a sign of preparedness for Punjab’s assembly elections early next year.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)