Mehbooba Mufti wins Anantnag bypoll by over 10,000 votes

TIL Desk/National/Srinagar-Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti today won the Anantnag by-polls by over 10,000 votes. Mehbooba Mufti defeated her closest contender Indian National Congress’s Hilal Shah by a margin of 12,085 votes. The count of votes goes as follows:

NC’s Iftikhar Hussain Misger got 2811 votes, PDP’s Mehbooba Mufti got 17701 votes, INC’s Hilal Ahmad Shah got 5616 votes, Tejinder Singh got 240 votes, Mujeeeb-ur-Rehman got 642 votes, Masroor Ahmad got 209 votes, Mushtaq Ahmad got 333 votes, Manzoor Ahmad Khan got 541 votes, NOTA 365

Total number of votes polled were 28458 including 638 migrant votes and 5 postal ballot votes. 57-year-old Mehbooba, who was till now a Lok Sabha member from the south Kashmir constituency of Anantnag, was contesting from the seat where by-poll was necessitated due to death of her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. The polls were also mandatory for her to enter the state legislature to continue as the Chief Minister. Several leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Rajnath Singh have congratulated Mehbooba for her win.