JammuNovember 14, 2025 01:37 PM IST
First published on: Nov 14, 2025 at 01:36 PM IST
BJP’s Devyani Rana on Thursday won the Nagrota Assembly seat as she polled 42,143 votes, a lead of 24,522 votes over her nearest rival, Harsh Dev Singh, a former minister and president of the J&K National Panthers Party (India).
According to the latest data released by the Election Commission of India after the conclusion of the final round of counting, the ruling National Conference finished a distant third in the bypoll with its candidate, Shamim Begum, securing 10,834 votes.
Devyani, who holds an Economics Degree from the University of California, is the daughter of Devender Rana, who won the seat for the BJP during the 2024 assembly elections by a margin of 30,472 votes, defeating his nearest NC candidate, Joginder Singh, who got 17,641 votes. Devender Rana died in October last year.
The byelection was seen by many as a litmus test for both the BJP and the ruling NC to assess their popularity in the region, just a year after the former won from the area and the latter formed the government in Jammu and Kashmir following the 2024 assembly elections.
Though the BJP’s margin this time has slightly decreased, the result indicates that the NC’s base has eroded more than anybody else’s. In fact, the Congress, which contested the polls here in 2024 and secured 5,979 votes, decided not to contest this time in the larger interest of defeating the BJP.
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The result, political observers say, is bound to add to the problems of the NC, whose relations with ally Congress have been strained following its refusal to leave one of two “safe” Rajya Sabha seats for which elections were held last month.
Of the four seats, while NC won three on expected lines, BJP sprang a surprise by securing 32 votes, four more than its own strength of 28 MLAs in the J&K Legislative Assembly, and winning the fourth seat on its own.
The BJP’s victory in one Rajya Sabha seat from J&K prompted its opponents to accuse the NC of being in collusion with the party.
These accusations got louder after the National Conference, despite the Congress’s decision not to contest the Nagrota bypoll, fielded its Jammu District Development Council member Shamim Begum to fight from the constituency.
The non-BJP camp, including many within the Congress, saw the NC’s decision as a move to help the BJP win the Nagrota seat.
According to them, had the NC been interested in giving a fight to the BJP, it would have supported Harsh Dev Singh, a three-time MLA from Ramnagar, who had been working in the Nagrota constituency long before the byelections were announced.
Now, with NC finishing third in the byelection, the results are likely to add to its problems, especially from the Congress, whose senior leaders are of the opinion that their six legislators are the “stabilising factor” in the Omar Abdullah government. The NC has 41 MLAs in the 88-member Legislative Assembly.
Though the NC, apart from the Congress’s six MLAs, has the support of five independents and one CPM legislator, raising its combined strength to 53, a senior Congress leader said that even though Congress and the CPM won’t ally with the BJP under any circumstances, one cannot say the same about independents.