Savitri Jindal, running as an independent candidate, is leading in the Hisar assembly seat in Haryana, according to Election Commission trends. Jindal, the mother of BJP’s Kurukshetra MP Naveen Jindal, has secured a margin of 3,836 votes over Congress candidate Ram Niwas Rara. The BJP candidate and outgoing MLA, Kamal Gupta, is currently in third place.
The counting of votes from the October 5 assembly elections began at 8 am on Tuesday. Jindal faces a challenging contest against Kamal Gupta of the BJP, who has represented Hisar since 2014. Savitri Jindal previously held the Hisar seat as a Congress representative from 2005 to 2013 but lost the seat to Gupta.
This election brings the two rivals head-to-head again. Jindal, who is India’s richest woman, chose to run as an independent after Gupta was selected as the BJP candidate over her. Meanwhile, her son, Naveen Jindal, is contesting the Kurukshetra seat on a BJP ticket.
With inputs from PTI