Haryana's ruling BJP surged ahead in the vote count in the Jind Assembly seat by-election by over 10,000 votes on Thursday after six rounds of counting.

Congress national spokesman Randeep Surjewala, who was fielded as a strong candidate despite being a sitting legislator, trailed at the third position with less than 10,000 votes after six rounds.

The Loktantar Suraksha Party (LSP), launched by rebel BJP MP Raj Kumar Saini, made an impressive beginning as it got over 7,700 votes to be in the fourth position. Its candidate is Vinod Ashri.

The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), which had won the seat in the last two elections, was trailing in the fifth position. The INLD had fielded Umed Singh as its candidate.

Voting for the by-poll took place on January 28 with nearly 76 per cent of the 1.72 lakh voters exercising their franchise in the multi-cornered contest.

The test was for all four major parties in the fray -- the BJP, Congress, INLD and the newly launched JJP as both Lok Sabha and Assembly elections were to be held later in 2019.

The bye-election was necessitated after the death of two-time INLD legislator Hari Chand Middha, whose son is in the fray on a BJP ticket.

The winner on this seat will have a tenure of only around nine months.

--IANS

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