New Delhi: The counting of votes for the bye-election of Milkipur Assembly seat of Ayodhya district began at 8 AM on Saturday. The main competition on this seat was between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP). The bypoll was necessitated after SP's Awadhesh Prasad vacated the seat upon winning the Faizabad (Ayodhya) Lok Sabha constituency in 2024.

The SP fielded his son, Ajit Prasad, while the BJP put forward Chandrabhanu Paswan, making it a direct fight between two Pasi leaders. As per EC, Paswan won the seat with 1,46,397 votes, leading by 61,710 votes.

The Milkipur constituency has approximately 3.60 lakh voters, including a significant 1.25 lakh Dalit electorate, with the Pasi community comprising around 65,000 voters.

Other key voter groups include OBCs (30,000), Muslims (30,000), Brahmins (65,000), and Yadavs (55,000). With both parties pulling out all stops to secure the crucial seat, all eyes are now on the counting process and the final results

Milkipur Bypoll Live Updates.

12:40 PM: Paswan wins the constituency with 1,46,397 votes.

12:26 PM: Paswan leads by 28,679 votes to his nearest rival Ajit Prasad of SP, in the tenth round of counting.

11:40 AM: RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha says, "There were many serious complaints filed regarding the Milkipur elections to the EC. Time will evaluate all this..."

11:10 AM: BJP's Chandrabhanu Paswan leads by 14,339 votes against rival Ajit Prasad of Samajwadi Party.

11:00 AM: Paswan consolidated his lead over Ajit Prasad by a margin of more than 18,000 votes.

10:05 AM: Latest trends

9:55 AM: After three rounds of voting, Paswan is maintaining the lead with over 10,000 votes.

9:40 AM: BJP's Chandrabhanu Paswan is leading from the Milkipur Assembly seat.