Samajwadi Party candidate Dimple Yadav was leading by more than 15,000 votes over her BJP rival in the initial rounds of counting on Thursday to the by-poll for the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat, in Uttar Pradesh.
White Yadav has bagged 24,969 votes, Bharatiya Janata Party’s Raghuraj Singh Shakya is trailing with 9563 votes in his kitty so far in the six-cornered contest.
The election to the seat was necessitated by the death of Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav in October.
Mulayam Singh Yadav, who founded the party in 1992, had won from the seat five times.
Dimple Yadav is Mulayam Singh Yadav’s elder daughter-in-law and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s wife.
The BJP candidate Shakya is a former close associate of Mulayam’s brother Shivpal Singh Yadav.
