Haryana Assembly: Wrestling champ turned Congress politician Vinesh Phogat wins debut election, trumps BJP’s Yogesh Kumar

Julana (Haryana) [India], October 8 (ANI): Congress candidate Vinesh Phogat on Tuesday emerged victorious in Julana Assambly Constituency in Haryana as she defeated Bharitya Janta Party (BJP) candidate Yogesh Kumar as per the Election Commission of India.

The former wrestler defeated her rival with a margin of 5761 votes.

Congress leader and wrestler Bajrang Punia who joined the Congress along with Punia only days prior to the Haryana Assembly elections took to social media to congratulate Vinesh.

“Many congratulations to the country’s daughter Vinesh Phogat for her victory. This fight was not just for one Julana seat, it was not just with 3-4 other candidates, it was not just a fight between parties. This fight was against the strongest oppressive forces in the country. And Vinesh emerged victorious,” Bajrang Punia wrote on X.

Vinesh totalled 65080 votes after 15 rounds of counting of votes today posting a margin of + 6015 votes over Yogesh Kumar.

Incidentally the Congress won the seat after 19 years.

As BJP edged towards a hat-trick in the Haryana assembly, the Congress has voiced concerns about discrepancies in the vote count data shown by the Election Commission.

“There is a mismatch in the actual number of rounds counted and the number of rounds being shown on the television through the Election Commission data. The EC data is lagging behind; they are still showing fourth or fifth-round data while 11 rounds have been counted. Our General Secretary Communications has tweeted to the Election Commission asking – are trying to put pressure on the local administration by delaying the display and uploading of data. In J&K you are getting live data with every round counted but in Haryana, it is not so,” Congress’ Pawan Khera told ANI.

Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh also accused the EC of trying to influence the results.

“Like the Lok Sabha elections, in Haryana, we are again witnessing a slowing down of uploading up-to-date trends on the ECI website. Is the BJP trying to build pressure on the administration by sharing outdated and misleading trends?” he said.