Vinesh Phogat Julana Election Result 2024 Highlights: Congress star candidate Vinesh Phogat wins dangal of Julana

Julana is a Jat-majority constituency, home to around 81,000 Jat voters, along with sizable populations of Backward Class voters (33,608) and Scheduled Caste voters (29,661).

The counting of votes for the 90 seats across 20 districts of the Haryana Assembly election began at 8 am on Tuesday morning.

Congress workers break into early celebrations outside the party office in Delhi, ahead of the counting of votes for Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Election today. The exit polls had given an edge to Congress in Haryana and NC-Congress alliance in J&K.

During the 2019 Haryana Assembly election, BJP emerged as the single-largest party and won 40 of the 90 seats. The saffron party formed the government in the northern state in coalition with Dushyant Chautala-led JJP, which managed 10 seats. However, in Julana, Jannayak Janata Party’s (JJP) Amarjeet Dhanda defeated BJP’s Parminder Singh Dhull by 24,193 votes.

Meanwhile, Congress lost the last three Assembly polls in Julana and in the 2019 election, the party could manage a mere 12,440 votes, ranking third behind JJP and BJP. However, with Phogat’s candidature, Congress is expected to put up a strong front.

The counting of votes for the Haryana Assembly election will begin at 8 am and the results will be announced subsequently.

International grappler Vinesh Phogat, who announced her retirement from wrestling after she was disqualified from the Paris Olympics 2024 finals over weight issues, joined Congress recently. Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra did campaigning for her ahead of the Haryana Assembly elections.

Phogat was among the wrestlers, including Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia, who protested against former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief and BJP leader Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, accused of sexually harassing female wrestlers, for months and demanded action against him.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has fielded Yogesh Bairagi, the vice president of the state BJP’s youth wing, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, and co-convenor of the BJP Sports cell, from the Julana seat.

A resident of Safidon and originally from Paanju Kalan village, Bairagi says he was inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s vision, which motivated him to step into politics seven years ago.

After talks for an alliance between the Congress and the AAP could not be decided, AAP fielded Kavita Dalal as its candidate from Julana to contest against Vinesh Phogat. Born in 1986, Dalal, also goes by the name ‘Kavita Devi’ and ‘Lady Khali’. She began her career in weightlifting in 2000. Dalal is the first Indian woman to sign on with the WWE. In the 2016 South Asian Games, she won gold in the 75 kg category.

In the electoral contest in Julana, she tried to attract Jat votes like Phogat, the first Indian woman wrestler to make it to the Olympics finals.

Both the women, in their 30s, are contesting their first election in Julana. They are challenging the incumbent MLA, Amarjeet Dhanda, who is seeking re-election on a Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) ticket.

While Vinesh is seeking votes as ‘Julana ki Bahu’ (daughter-in-law), citing her husband’s ancestry – who hails from Bakhta Khera village which falls in Julana — Kavita Dalal is reaching out to voters as ‘Julana ki beti’ (daughter) as her village, Malvi, is just 4 kms from here.