Jitendra retains Udhampur seat, defeats Vikramaditya by highest ever margin of over 3.57l votes

Union Minister Jitendra Singh Thursday retained the Udhampur Lok Sabha seat defeating Congress's Vikramaditya Singh, the grandson of erstwhile Maharaja Hari Singh, by 3,53,272 votes.

As per officials, it is the highest margin of victory of any successful candidate in the state till now. Jitendra Singh got 61.38 per cent of the total votes polled.

The BJP leader polled 7,24,311 votes while Vikramaditya Singh got 3,67,059 votes. Harsha Dev Singh of JKNPP got 24,319 votes, Election Commission officials said.

A total of 1,180,123 votes were counted in which 7,568 were declared as NOTA, they said.

"It is victory of people of this region. Inspite of analysis being done by our media friends, my voters have tried to be wiser. I bow before my people for voting for me," he told reporters here.

He said the people voted for the major development works carried in the constituency, which neither media could see nor the opposition parties, but it was seen by the common people.

"They were also saying there is no Modi wave in 2019. It was only in 2014 LS polls. But see, people proved it," he said.

The Union minister said that under the command of Modi, they will carry forward Vikas Yatra initiated across the country by him during the last five years.

Vikramaditya Singh, the son of veteran Congress leader Karan Singh, was a coalition candidate of the NC and Congress supported by PDP and CIP(M).

Dogra Swabhiman Sangathan founder and former BJP minister Choudhary Lal Singh, who had won this seat in 2009 and 2004 and has been two time minister, bagged only 19,049 votes.

In 2014, Jitendra Singh had defeated former Union minister Gulan Nabi Azad from the Udhampur Lok Sabha seat.

He was inducted in the Modi government as the Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office.