Gurjar 3/3 in Faridabad, but win margin falls by 4.6L votes

Bijendra Ahlawat

Faridabad, June 4

BJP candidate Krishan Pal Gurjar made a hat-trick for the Lok Sabha seat today as he won by a margin of 1,72,914 votes against his main rival Mahender Pratap Singh of the Congress party. Gurjar polled 7,88,569 votes against Singh, who polled 6,15,655 votes. The BSP candidate, who finished third with 25,206 votes, was among the 22 candidates who forfeited their security deposit. A total of 24 candidates were in the fray.

Gurjar was leading since the start of the counting of votes this morning. The margin, which was around 1,760 votes, at around 9.35 am rose to over 1.65 lakh at 6 pm. His rival could not manage to break the lead at any point of time. His victory led to the bursting of firecrackers and holding a victory parade by his supporters in many parts of the city. “The big margin was a clear signal of victory since the counting began,” said Ajay Gaur, a senior leader of the BJP. The counting of votes was conducted at seven centres, including six in Faridabad and one in Palwal for the votes polled in the Assembly constituencies of Faridabad, Badkhal, Tigaon, Ballabgarh, NIT, Prithla, Palwal, Hodal and Hathin segments.

The voting percentage this time had been around 60.2 per cent, which was lower by about five per cent in the 2019 elections. A total of 14,62,831 out of the total 24,30,212 registered voters exercised their right to franchise.

As Krishan Pal Gurjar got the votes share of 53.52 per cent, Singh managed around 41.92 per cent of the votes in the direct contest. While this percentage has slipped for the winner, it has doubled for the losing candidate in comparison to the performance in the 2019 elections. Gurjar’s vote share in 2019 had been 68.76 per cent against 20.70 per cent of his rival. He is the second BJP candidate who scored a hat-trick after Ram Chander Bainda, who had won from here in 1996,1998 and 1999.

However, the claims of a victory margin of over 10 lakh votes this time have fallen flat due to a gap of 1.70 lakh votes. Gurjar had defeated Congress candidate Avatar Singh Bhadana by a margin of 6.36 lakh votes in 2019. He became an MP for the first time in 2014 riding on the Modi wave.

Expressing gratitude to the voters, Gurjar also gave credit to PM Narendra Modi, claiming that the development done in the past 10 years had paid off in the third consecutive win.

79-yr-old’s entry made contest interesting

The entry of 79-year-old Mahender Pratap Singh, who has been a five-time MLA and a former Minister in Haryana, made the contest interesting not only due to his being from the Gurjar community, but had the benefit of the anti-incumbency factor. An emotional quotient also surfaced during the campaign after Singh announced that it was his last election.