Congress candidate wins from Udhampur-Doda seat

Congress candidate Choudhary Lal Singh has retained Udhampur-Doda Lok Sabha seat by defeating his nearest BJP rival Nirmal Singh by a margin of 13,394 votes.      

The Congress candidate polled 23,1,853 votes as against the BJP nominee who bagged only 21,8,459 votes, according to returning officer of the constituency Mandeep Kour, who is also Deputy Commissioner of Kathua.      

The Udhampur parliamentary constituency went to polls in the second phase of the five-phased elections in J&K on April 23. Over 45 per cent polling was registered in the constituency where 14 candidates were in the fray with an electorate of 13,62,382.     

In 2004 elections Choudhary Lal Singh had defeated his nearest rival Chaman Lal Gupta of BJP by a margin of 47,175 votes from this parliamentary seat.      

Singh had polled 24,0,872 votes, while Gupta had got 19,3,697 votes.      

The poll percentage that time was 45.09 when the number of voters was 13,48,721.      

The constituency has six districts of Kishtwar, Doda, Ramban, Reasi, Udhampur and Kathua.