By IANS,
Lucknow : Uttar Pradesh’s ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) Monday registered a sweeping victory in the bye-election for the Domariyaganj assembly constituency, retaining the seat by a huge margin.
The BSP nominee, Khatoon Taufique secured 44,765 votes to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate, Prem Prakash Tiwari (28,923) by a margin of 15,842 votes. The Samajwadi Party and the Congress nominees suffered humiliating defeats, coming fourth and fifth and forfeiting their deposits.
The bye-election was necessitated following the death of sitting member, the BSP’s Taufique Ahmed. The BSP then fielded his widow, Khatoon Taufique.
A sympathy wave led to her victory with a margin nearly 15 times that of her late husband’s in the 2007 assembly election. His victory margin was 1,049.
This bye-election’s biggest surprise was the third position bagged by newly formed Peace Party – a regional outfit – claiming to champion the cause of Muslims. It had fielded a Hindu candidate Sachchidanand, who polled 26,336 votes.
The Samajwadi Party’s Kamal Yusuf – who had lost in 2007 – and the Congress’s Ashok Kumar Singh polled 21,924 votes and 19,206 votes, respectively.