J-K bypolls: Devender Rana’s daughter Devyani Rana retains Nagrota for BJP

JAMMU: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has managed to retain Jammu and Kashmir’s Nagrota seat with late Devender Rana’s daughter Devyani Rana securing the Assembly constituency with a margin of more than 24,000 votes.

Voting for the bypolls in Nagrota Assembly constituency took place on November 11, and the counting of votes started at 8 am on Friday.

“I am very lucky that I got the support of BJP. I would like to thank every leader and other workers of BJP, family of Rana sir, everyone together made sure that I won the election. In 2024, Nagrota had given the blessing to Rana sir, and today, too, the people of Nagrota have blessed me,” the BJP candidate said.

#WATCH | Newly-elected BJP MLA from Nagrota, Devyani Rana says, “I am fortunate that the manner in which Nagrota blessed Rana sahib (her father, late MLA Devender Singh Rana), they did their duty of being a family today too and blessed me. I will be thankful to them…When BJP… https://t.co/9rT15GOlVC pic.twitter.com/sQmqebcDrS

— ANI (@ANI) November 14, 2025

Devyani Rana beat nine other candidates contesting for the seat. The BJP candidate beat Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (India) candidate Harsh Dev Singh with a margin of 24,000 votes. Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC) candidate Shamim Begum trailed by a margin of around 26,000 votes.

Rana is the daughter of former BJP MLA Devender Rana, who died on October 31, 2024, a week after taking oath as MLA of J&K Assembly. Rana had been a two-time MLA of Nagrota. While he won the 2024 polls under the BJP ticket, he was part of the JKNC and won under their ticket in 2014.

Counting of votes for the bypolls of around eight Assembly constituencies across six states and one Union Territory took place on Friday morning, while voting took place on November 11.

Counting of votes for two constituencies in J-K’s Budgam and Nagrota took place on Friday. Nagrota saw a head-to-head contest between the BJP and the National Conference (NC), with the latter fielding Shamim Begum.

Polling for the bye-elections was held in Budgam following the resignation of Omar Abdullah from the constituency. Chief Minister Abdullah chose to retain the Ganderbal constituency and vacate Budgam after winning both the seats in the 2024 assembly elections. (ANI)