ITANAGAR: Union minister Kiren Rijiju and another BJP candidate Tapir Gao won the two Lok Sabha seats in Arunachal Pradesh, according to the Election Commission. Both retained the seat.
Rijiju won the Arunachal West Lok Sabha seat, defeating his nearest rival Nabam Tuki of the Congress by a margin of 1,00,738 votes, the Election Commission said.
The BJP nominee polled 2,05,417 votes while Tuki, a former chief minister, bagged 1,04,679 votes.
In 2019, the union minister had won the seat by a margin of 1,74,843 votes. Rijiju, the Earth Sciences Minister in the Narendra Modi cabinet has been representing the Arunachal Pradesh West seat since 2004, except for one term. He lost to Congress' Takam Sanjay in 2009. Party’s MP Tapir Gao won the Arunachal East Parliamentary Constituency defeating his nearest rival Bosiram Siram of the Congress by a margin of 30,421 votes. Gao secured 1,45,581 votes while Siram bagged 1,15,160 votes.
In the assembly elections, the ruling BJP won 46 seats in the 60-member assembly followed by the National People's Party (NPEP) in five, NCP in three seats, the People's Party of Arunachal (PPA) in two seats, Congress in one and independent candidates won in three seats respectively.
Meanwhile, the Congress candidates wrested both the Lok Sabha seats in Manipur from the ruling BJP and its ally Naga People's Front (NPF). Despite trailing after the initial rounds of counting, Congress' Angomcha Bimol Akoijam won the Inner Manipur Lok Sabha seat after defeating BJP candidate and state Education Minister Thounaojam Basanta Kumar Singh by a margin of 1,09,801 votes
In the tribal reserve Outer Manipur parliamentary seat, Congress' Alfred Kanngam S. Arthur defeated NPF nominee Kachui Timothy Zimik by a margin of 85,418 votes. Akoijam is a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi, while Arthur is a former MLA from the Ukhrul Assembly constituency. Both were consensus nominees of the 10-party alliance in Manipur.
Arthur (50) belongs to the Tangkhul-Naga community, while Akoijam (57) belongs to the Meitei community.
Soon after getting elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time, Arthur celebrated his birthday at the Congress Bhavan in Imphal where former Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh, state Congress President Keisham Meghachandra Singh, and senior party leaders wished him.
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