The BJP's Jamyang Tsering Namgyal was leading by over 15,000 votes in the afternoon in Ladakh constituency, which witnessed several intriguing developments in the run-up to the elections.

During the May 6 election, three booths in Ladakh recorded more than 100 per cent voting.

Allegations that many of the booths had no non-BJP polling agents surfaced.

Then came a video. The Leh Press Club alleged a bribery attempt by BJP leaders seeking favourable pre-poll coverage. A video showed a BJP leader handing out cash to scribes. One of the persons in the video resembled state BJP president Ravinder Raina.

Non-BJP candidates also complained about army jawans being asked to reveal their voting preferences to their commanding officers over the phone instead of casting their postal ballots themselves. Avny Lavasa, the Leh deputy commissioner, wrote to the Ladakh-based chief of the 14 Corps citing a candidate’s complaint about “malpractices on part of various commanding officers of the Indian army in the electronic postal ballot system”. The army, however, was given a clean chit later.

In all, remote and sparsely populated Ladakh, which has a sizeable Buddhist population, had a dramatic election.