BJP records historic first win in Ladakh

Scripting history, BJP today emerged victorious for the first time on Ladakh Parliamentary seat with its candidate Thupstan Chhewang defeating Ghulam Raza by a slender margin of 36 votes.
In a nail bitting finish, Chhewang ended up with a tally 31,111 closely followed by Raza, a former district Congress President, at 31,075.
Raza had objected to the results after which the re-counting rpt re-counting of postal ballots was done.
After complete satisfaction, the returning officer announced the results declaring Chhewang as the winner.
The Lok Sabha seat had returned Congress candidates since 1967 elections till 1996 except in 1989 when an Independent candidate Mohamad Hassan Commander was elected.

From 1998, National Conference had wrested the seat from Congress till 2004 after which this seat has only returned independent candidates.
Chhewang had won in 2004 but as an Independent.
In today's election, another independent candidate Syed Mohammed Kazim stood third by polling 28,234 votes followed by Tsering Samphel of Congress with 26,402 votes.