Dehradun, June 3 (Agency)
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami registered a record victory in the Champawat bypoll defeating his nearest rival Nirmala Gehtodi of Congress by a margin of 55,025 votes. According to information received from Champawat District Election Office, out of the total 62,306 votes polled, the Chief Minister got a total of 58,258 votes and all the candidates, including the Congress, who contested against him forfeited their deposits. This is the biggest victory in the electoral history of Uttarakhand, formed in the year 2000, where out of the total votes cast in a one-sided contest, 94 percent of the total votes went to the winning candidate. Earlier, in 2012, Vijay Bahuguna, who was the Chief Minister of the then Congress government, defeated BJP candidate Late Prakash Pant by nearly 40,000 votes in the Sitarganj Assembly by-election. Voting for the by-election was held on May 31. Dhami has thanked the people of Champawat and Prime Minister Narendra for the victory. After the declaration of victory, supporters garlanded Dhami and distributed sweets. Dhami, who was sworn in as Chief Minister for the second time on March 23 in Uttarakhand, needed to be elected as a member of the Legislative Assembly within six months. In the recently held assembly elections, the BJP created history by winning 47 out of 70 seats in the state for the second time in a row, but Dhami, who led the victory, himself lost to Khatima. To clear the way for Dhami to contest the by-elections, Kailash Gahatodi had resigned from his assembly membership on April 21.
