INLD wins Haryana’s Ellenabad by-poll (Second Lead)

CHANDIGARH - Abhey Singh Chautala of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) Saturday won the crucial by-election for the Ellenabad assembly seat in Haryana, but with a victory margin lower than his father and former chief minister Om Prakash Chautala in the Oct 13 assembly polls.

Abhey Singh, the younger son of Chautala, won the seat by a margin of 6,227 votes against his Congress rival Bharat Singh Beniwal. Chautala had won this seat by 16,400 votes but vacated it in November as he was also elected from another assembly seat, Uchana Kalan, which he chose to retain.

Reacting to the result, Chautala said the victory was “against all odds”, while Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said the decreased margin of INLD’s win is the “moral victory” of the Congress.

“In the last assembly elections, the Congress candidate had lost from Ellenabad by a margin of about 16,000 votes, but now this margin has reduced to merely around 6,000. In a short span of few months, there is a big plunge in the winning margin,” Hooda said.

“Besides, this time the Congress candidate has got 58,000 votes, 10,000 more than last time,” he noted.

However, Chautala said that this was one of the biggest victories for the INLD and demanded Hooda’s resignation.

“Although our victory margin in Ellenabad has decreased this time, but still INLD considers it a big win. Despite of all odds, we have managed to get increased number of votes this time as compared to last year’s elections,” Chautala told reporters here.

“There is a Congress government in the state so they used every tactic to win this election. Even the government officials were working as if they were Congress party workers. Despite all this we have managed to win this seat that clearly proved that people of the state want an immediate change in the government,” he said, calling Hooda to take moral responsibility for the the loss and resign.

Of the 15 candidates in the fray, 11 were independents.

Other major parties like the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had not fielded candidates for this by-election in view of the direct contest between the Congress and the INLD.

Nearly 89 percent voters turned up to cast their votes in the by-elections Wednesday.