Ramgarh election: Congress candidate Shafia Zubair wins with over 12,000 margin

As many as 20 candidates contested the Ramgarh election on January 28.

Election issue: Congress president Rahul Gandhi with the party’s Rajasthan chief Sachin Pilot and senior leader Ashok Gehlot at a public meeting in Sikar | File photo

The Congress on Thursday won the Ramgarh Assembly seat in Rajasthan's Alwar district, taking its tally to the halfway mark of 100 in the 200-member House. The party had formed the government in the State in December 2018, after winning 99 seats, with the support of its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal.

Congress candidate Safia Khan defeated her nearest rival, Sukhwant Singh of BJP, with a margin of 12,228 votes. Ms. Khan polled 83,311 votes, while Mr. Singh received 71,083 votes and Bahujan Samaj Party's Jagat Singh, son of former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh, trailed behind at third position with 24,856 votes.

Ramgarh had shot into limelight in July last year following the alleged lynching of Haryana's dairy farmer Rakbar Khan by a mob of villagers near Lalawandi. However, the issue of attacks by mobs on those carrying cows was missing during the election campaign, as the candidates of various parties only raised the local development matters in the backward region.

Ms. Khan, wife of former MLA Zubair Khan, was earlier the Zila Pramukh of Alwar, while the BJP had fielded Mr. Singh after denying ticket to sitting MLA Gyandev Ahuja. Mr. Jagat Singh, who quit the BJP and joined BSP to contest the polls, had sought to make the electoral fight triangular without much of success.

About 79% of the 2.35 lakh voters had exercised their franchise in the January 28 polling. Twenty candidates, including two women, were in the fray.

The polling at the Ramgarh seat was postponed after the then BSP candidate Laxman Singh died of cardiac arrest on November 29, 2018. The December 7 Assembly election was held for 199 of the 200 constituencies in the State, in which the Congress won 99 seats.

Pradesh Congress Committee president and Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, who was on a tour of his Tonk constituency, said the electorate in Ramgarh had reposed their faith in the Congress government by supporting Ms. Khan. The election result was the evidence of “pro-people and dedicated work” peformed by the Congress in its present tenure, he said.