Patna: Counting of votes began on Saturday for the by-election to the Rupauli assembly seat in Bihar’s Purnea district, officials said. The counting of votes commenced at 8 am.
The voter turnout was 52.75 per cent in the July 10 bypoll.
The by-election was necessitated by the resignation of sitting MLA Bima Bharti, who had won the seat for JD(U) several times but quit the party recently to contest the Lok Sabha election on an RJD ticket.
Following her loss in the parliamentary election, she contested the bypoll as an RJD candidate.
The RJD hopes that Bharti will win the seat.
Pappu Yadav, the Independent MP from Purnea, announced his support for Bharti.
Altogether 11 candidates were in the fray in the bypoll, in which the JD(U) had fielded Kaladhar Prasad Mandal, who had contested the 2020 assembly polls from the seat as an Independent.
