Vikhe-Patil trounces Cong rival in Shirdi

NEW DELHI, May 31: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies appeared to have retained their hold in the northern and western part of...

NEW DELHI, May 31: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies appeared to have retained their hold in the northern and western part of the country, while Congress fortunes continued to fluctuate in the south as results of by-elections to three Lok Sabha and nine Assembly seats.

In the high profile Shirdi Assembly constituency in Maharashtra, Shiv Sena nominee and agriculture minister in the Manohar Joshi ministry, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil was tonight declared elected. Patil defeated Congress nominee Ravindra Deokar by 13,989 votes.

The BJP tonight retained the east Delhi Lok Sabha seat when its candidate, the Delhi food and civil supplies minister, Lal Bihari Tiwari, trounced his nearest Congress rival by 1,22,523 votes.

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JD candidate, Naveen Patnaik, defeated his nearest Congress rival by a margin of over 68,400 votes in the by-election to the Aska Lok Sabha constituency.

In Ernakulam Lok Sabha seat, the CPM led ruling IDF received a shot in the arm when Sebastian Paul, an Independent supported by it, retained the seat defeating his nearest rival Antony Issac (Congress-UDF).

In the Qila Raipur Assembly constituency in Punjab, Akali Dal (Badal) candidate Jagdish Singh Garcha emerged the winner In Farrukhabad, BJP candidate Prabha Dwivedi retained her late husband’s seat by a margin of 19,211 votes.

The BJP also retained the Khandwa Assembly seat in Madhya Pradesh where its nominee Hukmchand Yadav defeated his nearest Congress rival Munish Mishra by a margin of more than 5,000 votes.

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In Karnataka, the Congress wrested the Molakalamaru Assembly seat when its candidate N Y Gopalakrishna defeated his Janata Dal rival by a margin of over 12,107 votes.

The ruling Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh retained the Martur Assembly seat in Prakasam district. In Naupada assembly constituency, ruling Congress nominee Jagannath Pattnaik, won the seat and in Daspalla assembly constituency, independent candidate Harihar Karan was leading over his Congress rival Sudipta Kishore Ray.