AAP registers first win in JK, draws a blank in Haryana

The Aam Aadmi Party registered its first victory in assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday when its candidate Mehraj Malik defeated his nearest rival from the BJP in Doda constituency by a margin of over 4,538 votes.

Malik, a District Development Council (DDC) member, polled 23,228 votes against BJP's Gajay Singh Rana's 18,690 votes.

National Conference leader and former minister Khalid Najib Suharwardy and DPAP leader Abdul Majid Wani got 13,334 and 10,027 votes, respectively. Congress candidate Sheikh Riaz Ahmad was pushed to the fifth place having secured 4,170 votes.

Malik unsuccessfully contested Lok Sabha elections from Udhampur constituency early this year.

The AAP had fielded seven candidates out of 90 assembly segments.

The party, which is in power in Delhi and Punjab, was granted national party status in September last year. It also has MLAs in Gujarat and Goa.

The AAP, meanwhile, suffered a humiliating defeat in Haryana, the home state of Kejriwal, with most of its candidates set to lose their security deposit.

AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal said the "biggest lesson" of the poll results is that one should never be "overconfident" in the elections.

The BJP looks forward to a comfortable win in Haryana, leading in 50 of the 90 assembly seats.

"Let us see what the results are in Haryana. The biggest lesson of this is that one should never be overconfident in the elections," said Kejriwal addressing a gathering of the AAP municipal councillors.

"No election should be taken lightly. Each election and each seat is tough," he added.

The AAP failed to reach a pre-poll alliance in Haryana with the Congress due to disagreement over number of seats to be contested by it.

It independently contested 89 of the total 90 seats in the state after its demand for being given 9 seats was turned down by the Congress.