Andaman and Nicobar Lok Sabha Election Results 2019: Cong's Kuldeep Rai Sharma leading in a tight struggle with BJP

Andaman and Nicobar Lok Sabha Election result updates:

As of 7:30 pm, Congress candidate Kuldeep Rai Sharma is leading ahead of his BJP rival, Vishal Jolly, with a tight margin of 1042 votes.

Constituency Profile:

Andaman and Nicobar Lok Sabha constituency is the lone constituency of the beautiful Union Territory located in the Bay of Bengal. 

Before 1967, MP for this seat was nominated by the President. But post that, direct elections like that in rest of the country has taken place in Andaman and Nicobar Lok Sabha seat. 

The seat has been a traditional Congress bastion with Manoranjan Bhakta winning the seat for eight times. However, with BJP's emergence as a major force nationally, there has been a change of guard in this seat too. Since 1999, Bishnu Pada Roy of BJP has won thrice only losing in 2004 to Manoranjan Bhakta. 

Bengali is the most spoken language in the Union Territory followed by Hindi, Tamil, and Telegu. This time around BJP has fielded Vishal Jolly. TMC too is in the fray. Kuldeep Rai Sharma, who narrowly missed out in last two elections has been again given Congress ticket. He lost by 7 thousand votes in 2014 and by around 3,000 votes in 2009. 

Ayan Mandal is contesting for TMC with support of Kamal Hassan's party MNM.