Lucknow/Agartala, Sep 8: The by-election results for seven assembly seats in six states declared on Friday were a mixed bag for the BJP and the opposition INDIA bloc, with the saffron party winning three seats and one each going to its rivals Congress, JMM and TMC and Samajwadi Party. The opposition alliance tasted victory in the Ghosi assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh, where it backed the Samajwadi Party, and in Jharkhand, where the JMM retained the Dumri assembly seat.
The BJP maintained its hold on the Bageshwar assembly seat in Uttarakhand and Dhanpur in Tripura and wrested the Boxanagar assembly seat from CPI(M) in the northeastern state, where the INDIA alliance parties had joined hands, but lost the Dhupguri assembly seat in West Bengal to the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
“I would like to congratulate all those who beat the BJP to win the bypolls. The BJP has lost four bypolls out of the seven held on September 5. This is a big win for INDIA,” West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee said.
BJP leaders hailed the party’s victory in Tripura and Uttarakhand and its in-charge of the northeastern region Sambit Patra said the results have shattered the arrogance of the “ghamandiya” alliance of opposition parties. The bypolls were the first electoral test for the INDIA alliance of 28 parties formed recently to take on the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls next year. Of the seven seats where the by-election was held on September 5, three were earlier held by the BJP, and one each was with the Congress, SP, CPI(M) and JMM.
The opposition Congress-led UDF in Kerala retained the Puthuppally Assembly constituency in Kerala as its candidate Chandy Oommen, son of late Congress stalwart Oommen Chandy, trounced ruling LDF candidate Jaick C Thomas.
While Oommen gathered 80,144 votes, Thomas could get only 42,425 votes. BJP candidate Lijin Lal finished a distant third with 6,558 votes.
The Congress and the Left, which are part of the INDIA alliance but are the main rivals in the southern state, contested against each other and poll observers said the sympathy generated by the demise of his hugely popular father played out to the advantage of Chandy Oommen. In Ghosi, Samajwadi Party candidate Sudhakar Singh defeated BJP’s Dara Singh Chauhan, who had won the seat in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls on the Samajwadi Party ticket but returned to the BJP recently. “It is a win for positive politics and a defeat for negative communal politics… It is Bharat starting towards INDIA’s victory,” SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said.
Singh defeated Dara Singh Chauhan by 42,759 votes. Chauhan was a minister in the first Yogi Adityanath government and had switched to the SP before the last UP Assembly polls This time, Chauhan was supported by NDA partners Apna Dal (Sonelal), Nirbal Indian Shoshit Hamara Aam Dal (NISHAD) Party and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, a former SP ally. On the other hand, INDIA bloc constituents – Congress, Left parties, RLD, AAP, and Suheldev Swabhiman Party – extended support to the SP.
Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s Bebi Devi won in Dumri in Giridih district by defeating AJSU’s Yashoda Devi by over 17,000 votes, according to a district administration official. The JMM candidate who is also the INDIA block nominee got about 1,35,480 votes while NDA candidate Yashoda Devi got about 1,18,380 votes, the official said. (PTI)
