Congress Triumphs in Uttarakhand Bypolls: Nizamuddin and Butola Secure Wins

The Congress party won both assembly seats in Uttarakhand bypolls. Qazi Mohammad Nizamuddin retained Manglaur, and Lakhapat Butola took Badrinath. The party's win increases its MLAs in the 70-member Uttarakhand Assembly to 20. Key BJP candidates, including state president Mahendra Bhatt, were defeated.

The Congress on Saturday won both the assembly seats in Uttarakhand where bypolls were held, snatching the Manglaur constituency from the BSP and retaining Badrinath by defeating the BJP.

Qazi Mohammad Nizamuddin won Manglaur for the fourth time, edging out BJP's Kartar Singh Bhadana by a narrow margin of 422 votes. Nizamuddin has previously won the seat twice as a BSP candidate and once as a Congress candidate.

The BSP, which had won the seat in the 2022 assembly polls, fell to the third position this time. Ubaidur Rahman, son of former BSP MLA Sarwat Karim Ansari, got 19,559 votes against Nizamuddin's 31,727 and Bhadana's 31,305 votes. This win takes the number of Congress MLAs in the 70-member Uttarakhand Assembly from 19 to 20.

In Badrinath, Congress's Lakhapat Butola, a first-time contestant, scored an upset victory over BJP's former minister and MLA Rajendra Bhandari by 5,224 votes. The BJP could not end the opposition monopoly in Manglaur despite a close finish with more than 31,000 votes.