Kuldeep Bishnoi wins Hisar bypoll

Haryana Janhit Congress-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance candidate Kuldeep Bishnoi won the Hisar by-election on Monday, defeating his nearest rival Ajay Chautala of the INLD by a margin of 6,323 votes.

Bishnoi (42), son of former Haryana Chief Minister Bhajan Lal whose death caused the bypoll, retained the seat for the party defeating his nearest rival INLD's Ajay Singh Chautala (50), son of former Chief Minister Om Parkash Chautala, by a margin of 6,323 votes, out of the over nine lakh votes polled.

Ruling Congress nominee and three-time MP from Hisar Jai Prakash (58), a former Union Minister, finished third. He had won the seat last in 2004 as Congress nominee.

Bishnoi, whose Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) tied up with BJP, secured 3,55,941 votes followed by Chautala with 3,49,618 votes and way behind was Jai Parkash, who polled 1,49,785 votes.

It was essentially a triangular contest in a field with 40 candidates and a total electorate of 13.32 lakh.

Bishnoi's father Bhajan Lal had won the Hissar Lok Sabha seat in the 2009 elections with a margin of 6,983 votes over his nearest rival Sampat Singh of the INLD, who later joined Congress shortly before 2009 Assembly elections.

Jai Prakash had finished third in 2009 Lok Sabha elections when he secured 2,04,539 votes as compared with 1,49,785 votes secured now.

Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj thanked people of Haryana, particularly the electorate of Hisar, for supporting the BJP-HJC alliance and electing Bishnoi.

"The BJP-HJC alliance will continue in future also," she said.

Echoing her words, Bishnoi said, "people have voted for the alliance and alliance will go a long way."

Union Finance Minister and senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee said, "A loss in any election is a sad thing. We shall have to analyse why we lost the bypolls and what are the reasons."

Out of the nine assembly segments Bishnoi led in five - Adampur, Hansi, Barwala, Hisar and Nalwa.

Chautala led in remaining four - Uchana Kalan, Uklana, Narnaund and Bawani Khera.

The Congress nominee remained third in all the segments. Bishnoi was maintaining a lead of around 30,000 votes till the last few rounds of counting but at the end he had to be satisfied with a narrow lead of 6,323 votes.

The bypoll held on 13^th October had witnessed a turnout of nearly 69 percent with the Anna factor raising the stakes for the Congress.

Thanking the voters, Bishnoi said that Hisar had been traditional seat won by a member of his family.

"The win is basically because of my father and family's track record. We have done a lot for Hisar," he said.

"The win today is a foundation stone for the formation of HJC-BJP government in the state in the future," he said.