Bawana bypoll: AAP’s Ram Chander gets past Cong candidate

New Delhi, Aug 28 (PTI) The Bawana bypoll seemed to be headed for a cliffhanger with AAP candidate Ram Chander pulling ahead of Congress's Surender Kumar after the 12th round of counting of votes.The

New Delhi, Aug 28 (PTI) The Bawana bypoll seemed to be headed for a cliffhanger with AAP candidate Ram Chander pulling ahead of Congress’s Surender Kumar after the 12th round of counting of votes.

The AAP candidate had polled 23,216 votes and Kumar had bagged 21,848 at the end of the 12th round of counting, the Delhi CEO office said.

BJP candidate Ved Prakash was placed third with 16,561 votes. So far, 625 votes have been counted under the “none of the above” category.

Kumar took an early lead over his rivals. Chander surpassed him by the end of the eighth round of counting.

The counting, which began at 8 am, is likely to go on till 28 rounds, officials said.

Bawana is one of the largest constituencies in Delhi in terms of number of voters (2.94 lakh).

The by-poll, which was held on August 23, saw a meagre turnout of 45 per cent. A total of eight candidates are in the fray.

The Congress is hoping for a victory in the bypoll to open its account in the Delhi Assembly. The party had drawn a blank in the 2015 Assembly elections.

In the 70-member Delhi Assembly, the AAP has 65 MLAs and the BJP 4.

This is published unedited from the PTI feed.