CHANDIGARH: The Captain Amarinder Singh-led Congress party has won three out of the four assembly seats in the Punjab bypolls.
The ruling party won the Phagwara, Mukerian and Jalalabad seats. The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) is leading in Dakha, the other seat where results are awaited.
Phagwara saw Congress candidate and former IAS officer Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal defeating BJP nominee Rajesh Bagha by a margin of 26116 votes.
Raminder Awla of Congress defeated Raj Singh Dibipura of SAD by 16,633 votes from Jalalabad, considered an Akali bastion. Congress candidate Indu Bala won from Mukerian seat by defeating Jangi Lal Mahajan of BJP by a margin of 3,440 votes.
The Congress had formed the government in 2017 after winning a majority in Assembly elections. The Phagwara seat fell vacant after its legislator Som Parkash was elected to the Lok Sabha earlier this year from Hoshiarpur.
The Dakha constituency, where results are awaited, is witnessing one of the most keenly-watched contests- a direct conflict between Congress and Akalis. Sandeep Sandhu, political secretary of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, is the Congress candidate, and he is is pitted against SAD's Manpreet Singh Ayali.
The seat got vacant after former AAP leader and noted Supreme Court lawyer HS Phoolka resigned from the state assembly in October last year over the Congress government's alleged failure to take action against those involved in the desecration of religious sects in 2015 in Punjab.
Jalalabad, another Akali bastion, fell vacant after SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal got elected to the Lok Sabha from Ferozepur parliamentary constituency.
In the 117-member Punjab Assembly, the Congress at present has 77 seats, SAD 13, AAP 19, BJP 2, Lok Insaaf Party 2.
With inputs from IANS