"Delhi is not too far now," Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut said after party candidate Kalaben Delkar won the by-election to the Dadra and Nagar Haveli Lok Sabha seat with a comfortable margin of 51,269 votes after defeating BJP's Mahesh Gavit. Her win earned Sena its first Lok Sabha seat outside Maharashtra.
While Kalaben Delkar (50), wife of former independent MP Mohan Delkar whose death necessitated the bypoll, garnered 1,18,035 votes, her closest rival, BJP's Mahesh Gavit, bagged 66,766 votes. Congress candidate Mahesh Dhodi finished third with 6,150 votes.
The Congress and the Shiv Sena are ruling allies in Maharashtra, but they fought the bypoll separately.
Voting in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) reserved parliamentary seat took place on October 30 and counting was taken up on Tuesday morning.
Counting of votes was held in Silvassa city of Dadra and Nagar Haveli district, which is part of the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.
The by-election was necessitated by the death of sitting MP Mohan Delkar, who won as an independent in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls by defeating then-sitting BJP MP Natubhai Patel by a thin margin of 9,001 votes.
Mohan Delkar had been with the Congress and the BJP at different times during his political career.
He allegedly hanged himself at a Mumbai hotel on February 22, 2021.
(With PTI inputs)
