Samajwadi Party wins Pharenda Assembly bypoll

MAHARAJGANJ: Ruling Samajwadi Party today won the bypoll to the Pharenda Assembly seat defeating its nearest Congress rival by over 9,000 votes.

SP candidate Vinod Tiwari won the seat in the bypoll defeating nearest Congress rival Brirendra Kumar Chaudhary by a margin of 9,231 votes, state election commission officials said.

Tiwari secured 64,878 votes while Congress nominee Chaudhary bagged 55,647 votes. BJP's Bajrang Bahadur Singh managed to gather only 41,247 votes.

Bypoll was held to the Pharenda seat on April 30. The Pharenda seat fell vacant after the disqualification of BJP MLA Singh who was found to have acquired a road construction contract from the Public Works Department on October 15, 2012, after he became an MLA.

He was disqualified by Governor Ram Naik from the day he acquired the contract.

The Supreme Court had also upheld the Governor's decision to disqualify Bajrang Bahadur Singh from the state Assembly for acquiring a road construction contract from the state government while serving as a lawmaker.