Dhemaji, April 13: The ruling BJP today won the Dhemaji bypoll, raising its number in the 126-member Assam Assembly to 61, but the Congress, too, had something to take heart from as it cut its defeat margin by almost half, compared to the Assembly polls last year.

BJP candidate Ranoj Pegu won by a margin of 9,285 votes, polling 75,217 votes to Congress candidate Babul Sonowal's 65,932 votes.

In the Assembly election in April last year, Pradan Baruah of the BJP (69,592 votes) had defeated Sumitra Patir of the Congress (50,471 votes) by 19,121 votes in Dhemaji. Subsequently, after being elected to the Lok Sabha, Baruah had relinquished the seat, necessitating a bypoll in Dhemaji constituency (ST).

Baruah, in the Lok Sabha bypoll in November 2016, had, with 70,767 votes, taken a lead of 31,735 votes over Congress candidate Hemahari Prasanna Pegu (39,032 votes) in the Dhemaji Assembly segment.

The other candidates in the fray for the Dhemaji bypoll held on Sunday were Hemkanto Miri (SUCI-Communist), who got 1,218 votes, Raj Kumar Doley (Voters Party of India) with 1,347 votes and Jadu Hazarika (CPM) securing 4,944 votes. Another 1,371 votes went to NOTA.

Of the 2,19,751 voters in the constituency, 1,50,029 exercised their franchise.

Pegu had in the last three decades lost twice in the Assembly polls and twice in Lok Sabha polls, contesting on Gana Shakti ticket. He had, however, won the Mising Autonomous Council polls and was selected to head it before he resigned to contest the Dhemaji bypolls.

Speaking to The Telegraph, he expressed his gratitude to the people of Dhemaji for reposing their faith in him and promised to do his "level best to take forward Baruah's initiatives for the development of Dhemaji".

Chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal said the result reflected the people's faith in the Narendra Modi government and their satisfaction with the BJP-led state government's performance. He thanked the voters of Dhemaji for their decisive mandate in favour of the BJP candidate.

PCC president Ripun Bora, accepting the party's defeat, thanked the people and the party's rank and file for the improved performance despite heavy odds, including the BJP being in power at the Centre and the state and the alleged misuse of money and the official machinery in the bypoll.

PCC general secretary Sushil Pegu said they were "not" satisfied with the result as "our candidate was the fittest".

"We had lodged a complaint with the Election Commission about the BJP violating the model code of conduct but they didn't pay any heed to our complaint. The BJP misused the government machineries to win the election. Had free and fare election been held, our candidate Babul Sonowal would have won," he said, adding, "It is obvious from the result that the faith of the voters has increased in the Congress."

Congress general secretary Kalyan Gogoi said in Guwahati that the result reflected the growing disillusionment of the people with the incumbent BJP-led government. "We have added over 15,000 votes since the Assembly polls in April last year. The fielding of Babul, a youth leader and has a good hold in the constituency, also helped. It would have been great had we won but there is a lot to look forward to in the long run," he added.

Congress insiders said the party needs to put in place a cohesive team before the panchayat polls which will be the next big test for it and the BJP-led alliance.

Assam BJP president Ranjeet Kumar Dass thanked Dhemaji voters for electing the party's candidate. He said under the leadership of Pegu, Dhemaji would witness rapid development and the BJP would try to solve the problems faced by the people of Dhemaji in a phased manner.

He also thanked the party rank and file, including chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal, health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and cultural affairs minister Naba Doley, for working wholeheartedly for the victory of the BJP candidate.

While the BJP's strength has gone up to 61 in the Assembly, its allies, the AGP and the BPF, have 14 and 12 legislators respectively.

Additional reporting by our Guwahati Bureau