Congress's Vinesh Phogat wins debut election from Haryana's Julana

New Delhi:

Congress candidate and former wrestler Vinesh Phogat has won the Julana Assembly seat in Haryana. “The truth has prevailed,” Ms. Phogat said in her first reaction after her election victory.

Their victory comes even as the ruling BJP crossed the majority mark in the Haryana Assembly and is leading by 50 seats while the Congress is ahead by 35 seats, as per the latest trends on the Election Commission website. The BJP's stellar performance in Haryana, which is up for a third term in the state, has undermined poll results that had predicted a Congress comeback in the state.

The 30-year-old was undeterred by the trends but remained hopeful and said, “Let’s just wait and see. Once the certificates come in, Congress will form the government.”

Live updates on Haryana Election Results 2024 here.

The counting of votes cast in the October 5 Haryana elections began at 8 am on Tuesday.

The Olympic champion defeated BJP captain Yogesh Bairagi, a former army officer, and former professional wrestler Kavita Dalal of the Aam Aadmi Party – a member of the centrist opposition INDIA bloc – by a margin of more than 6,000 seats.

Ms Phogat, who suffered heartbreak at the Olympics this year after her surprise disqualification, joined the congress on September 6. Just a few hours later, she made it onto the party's list of candidates.

“I’m starting a new inning. I don’t want athletes to have to deal with what we had to go through,” she said.

Last year, Ms Phogat led a long-running protest against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who was then a BJP MP.

She thanked the Congress after joining politics and said, “It is only in bad times that you find out who is with you. When we were dragged onto the streets, every party except the BJP stood with us and understood our pain and our tears”.

The Haryana elections are the first major direct contest between the BJP and the Congress after the Lok Sabha polls and the results are expected to be used by the winner to vote in other states that will go to polls in the next polls to build a narrative in his favor for a few months.