NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) last week won the Udhampur Lok Sabha seat by a margin of 70,055 votes over its nearest Congress rival. Janata Dal candidate Mohammad Maqbool Dar was loading in the Anantnag parliamentary constituency, official sources said, without giving details of the votes polled by the respective candidates.
Of the 4.41 lakh votes polled in Udhampur constituency, the BJP candidate, Prof Chaman Lal Gupta, got 1, 66,206 votes while Congress Janak Raj Guptagot 96,151 votes in a multi cornered contest. Of the 40 candidates in the fray Janata Dal candidate D.D. Thakur emerged third by polling 81,123 votes.
The Bahujan Samaj Party polled 32,011 votes, followed by Panthers Party (22,611) and Congress (I) 9,269 votes.
1tis for the first time that the BJP has won a Lok Sabha scat in the State.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 12, 1996
