DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat Friday won the bypoll for the Dharchula assembly seat, election officials said.
The senior Congress lader won by over 20,000 votes and defeated his nearest Bharatiya Janata Party rival B.D. Joshi.
Rawat was an MP from Uttarakhand before taking over as the chief minister of the hill state and had to become a lawmaker within the stipulated period of six months.
The seat was vacated by legislator Harish Dhami to facilitate election of the chief minister as a legislator.
In the bypolls in other two constituencies - Doiwala and Someshwar - following election of incumbents Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank and Ajay Tamta, both from the BJP as Lok Sabha members from Haridwar and Almora, the ruling Congress was leading.
This comes as a setback for the BJP which made a clean sweep in the Lok Sabha elections held in May, winning all five seats of Almora, Garhwal, Hardwar, Nainital-Udhamsingh Nagar and Tehri Garhwal from Uttarakhand.