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India general election: Why BJP won 1 seat before counting began
The Bharatiya Janata Party has already drawn first blood with Mukesh Dalal winning the Surat Lok Sabha seat unopposed.
The mammoth exercise to count votes polled for the Lok Sabha seats in the 2024 elections began at 8am on Tuesday. Results of the assembly elections in Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh were held simultaneously with voting for the 543-member Lok Sabha. Results of 175 assembly constituencies in Andhra Pradesh and 147 assembly constituencies in Odisha and results of bypolls in 25 assembly constituencies will also be declared today.
But even before the results were out, the Bharatiya Janata Party has already drawn first blood with Mukesh Dalal winning the Surat Lok Sabha seat unopposed after the nomination of Congress' Nilesh Kumbhani was rejected over irregularities in the signature of proposers and other candidates withdrew before the polls. Follow live update Lok Sabha election results 2024
Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Monday said in cases of uncontested polls, the Election Commission steps in when other candidates in the fray withdraw nominations under duress.
He also indicated that any provision that bars a person from being declared winner in case of uncontested polls may not be in accordance with the law. He was responding to a question at a press conference on a Supreme Court ruling on 'none of the above' option vis-a-vis candidates who are elected to Lok Sabha or assemblies unopposed.
On April 22, BJP's Mukesh Dalal was declared elected unopposed from Surat after all other candidates, including one from the BSP, withdrew their nominations.
Due to a pre-poll alliance with the Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party had not fielded its candidate from Surat. Kumbhani had gone incommunicado since April 22.
He was later suspended by the Congress, which blamed him for the rejection of the nomination form and also accused him of "connivance with the BJP". Lok Sabha polls were held in a single phase in Gujarat on May 7. Results for 25 out of the state's 26 seats will be declared on June 4.
