SP retains 1 seat; BJP’s strength in 403-seated UP House goes up to 310
Diwali seems to have arrived a few days early for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh and other States where the votes for the bypolls and State Assembly elections were counted on Tuesday with the saffron party sailing through.
The BJP drubbed the divided Opposition in Uttar Pradesh by winning 6 seats of the total 7, while Samajwadi Party managed to retain one seat.
BJP candidates won the Bulandshahr, Tundla, Ghatampur, Deoria, Naugawan Sadat and Bangarmau seats with a bigger margin compared to the 2017 Assembly elections while the SP won the Malhani seat in Jaunpur district.
Four cornered contest in the bypolls benefited the ruling BJP as all the three Opposition parties — SP, BSP and Congress candidates polled sizeable number of votes thus paving the victory of the ruling saffron party. With this win, the total strength of the BJP in the 403-seated UP Assembly has gone to 310. Now, the SP’s strength is 49.
The Congress and the BSP had fielded candidates in all seven seats and they drew blank. However, the
minor consolation for the Congress was in Bangarmau where its candidate finished second.
The narrative of outrage over the Hathras incident and the anti-incumbency factor crafted by the Opposition in Uttar Pradesh failed to make any impact on the electoral fortunes of the BJP.
As per the Election Commission figure, the BJP polled a vote share of 36.7 per cent in the bypolls in 7 seats followed by 23.6 per cent by the SP, 19 per cent by the BSP, 7.5 per cent by the Congress and 11.4 per cent by others. The bypolls witnessed keen contest in Mahlani and Naugawan Sadat seats where the leads changed frequently.
Javed Abbas of SP, who was leading in the initial rounds of counting in Naugawan Sadat seat in Amroha.
Sangeeta, who is widow of former UP Minister and cricketer Chetan Chauhan, who recently succumbed to corona, won the election by a margin of 15,077 votes.
In Bulandshahr, BJP’s Usha Sirohi defeated her nearest BSP rival Haji Yunus by a margin of 21,701 votes while in Tundla seat; the BJP’s Prempal Singh Dhangar defeated SP’s Maharaj Singh Dhangar by 17,683 votes.
In Bangarmau seat, BJP candidate Shrikant Katiyar defeated Arti Bajpai of the Congress by a margin of 31,398 votes and in Ghatampur seat BJP candidate Upendra Nath Paswan defeated Dr Kripa Shanker of Congress by over 23,820 votes.
In Deoria seat, BJP candidate Dr Satya Prakash Mani Tripathi trounced his nearest SP candidate Brahmashankar Tripathi by 20,089 votes while SP candidate Lucky Yadav defeated his nearest Independent candidate and former MP Dhananjay Singh by 4,623 votes.
The bypolls were necessitated on seven seats in Uttar Pradesh after the deaths of sitting MLAs in Bulandshahr, Deoria, Malhani, Naugaon Sadat, and Ghatampur. The Tundla seat fell vacant after its MLA, S P Singh Baghel, was elected to the Lok Sabha, while the Bangarmau seat in Unnao fell vacant after the conviction of BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar in a rape case. Barring Malhani, the other six seats were ruled by BJP MLAs
BJP leaders claimed that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s dominance is the reason why the party is maintaining its 2017 form. Its spokesperson Dr Chandra Mohan said, “There was no anti-incumbency against us. Yogi has proved that we are working for the welfare of the poor and for the development of the state. His Government’s performance has been vindicated.”
