Lakhpat Butola, Congress candidate won the Badrinath assembly seat in by-election.

Chamoli: Amid tight security, the counting of votes for Badrinath assembly by-election was conducted peacefully Saturday here at Gopeshwar and congress candidate Lakhpat Singh Butola won the Badrinath seat in the by-election.

Lakhpat Butola defeated his nearest rival BJP candidate Rajendra Singh Bhandari by 5224 votes. Although, there were four candidates contested the by-election on the Badrinath seat. In this, Lakhpat Singh Butola of the Congress party got the highest number of votes 28161, while his nearest rival BJP candidate Rajendra Singh Bhandari got 22937 votes. Independent candidate Naval Kishore Khaali got only 1813 votes and Sainik Samaj Party candidate Himmat Singh Negi got the lowest number of votes only 494. In the by-election, 823 people choosed NOTA.

The counting of votes was completed peacefully under the supervision of Election Commission’s General Observer Anita Ramachandran, District Election Officer Himanshu Khurana, Superintendent of Police Sarvesh Panwar and Returning Officer RK Pandey. Counting of votes for Badrinath seat was completed in 15 rounds. After the completion of counting of all rounds, as per the instructions of the Commission, the VVPAT slips of 5 polling stations of the assembly were also matched in the presence of agents. Returning Officer RK Pandey gave the certificate to Congress candidate Lakhpat Singh Butola, who won the by-election.