The Bharatiya Janata Party’s dream of coming back to power in this politically-crucial state in 2017 suffered a major setback as the party lost its eight Assembly seats to the ruling Samajwadi Party and also faced a humiliating defeat in the Mainpuri parliamentary bypoll where its candidate lost by a huge margin of over 3.30 lakh votes in straight fight.
The BJP could retain only three assembly seats where bypolls were held on Saturday.
The biggest jolt for the party is the defeat of alliance partner, Apna Dal, in Rohaniya Assembly seat as it is a segment of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency.
Apna Dal candidate Krishna Patel lost to SP’s Mahendra Singh Patel by a margin of 11,449 votes. However, Apna Dal supporters along with their leader Anupriya Patel and some other candidates were staging demonstration near the counting centre, alleging tampering with the electronic voting machines. With the protest intensifying, a large contingent of police force has been deployed there to avert any untoward incident.
The SP won Thakurdwara, Bijor, Nighasan, Charkhari, Hamirpur, Sirathu, Balha and Rohania Assembly seats. In Mainpuri lok Sabha constituency, SP candidate Tej Pratap Singh Yadav won by a margin of over 3.30 lakh votes against BJP candidate Prem Singh Shakya. The seat was vacated by SP supremo Mulayam SinghYadav.
BJP candidate Ashutosh Tandon retained the prestigious lucknow East Assembly seat. He defeated his nearest SP rival Juhi Singh by a margin of 26,459 votes.
The lucknow East Assembly seat was vacated by Union minister Kalraj Mishra after winning the lok Sabha election from Deoria. All eyes were on its result as this seat is a segment of lucknow lok Sabha constituency represented by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
BJP candidate Vimla Batham also retained the Noida Assembly seat in Gautam Buddha Nagar district. She defeated Kajal Sharma of the SP by a margin of 58,555 votes.
After much ups and down, BJP candidate Rajiv Gumber retained the Saharanpur City seat, defeating SP candidate Sanjay Garg by a margin of 26,667 votes.
Kaptan Singh of the Samajwadi Party made a major upset when he wrested the prestigious Charkhari Assembly seat in Mahoba district of the Bundelkhand region. The seat was vacated by Union minister and former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Uma Bharti.
Kaptan Singh defeated his nearest Congress rival Ram Jivan by over 50,807 votes. BJP candidate Geeta Singh was at the third spot. The Thakurdwara assembly seat in Moradabad district, that was prestigious for the BJP, was wrested by Samajwadi Party candidate Nabab Jaan who defeated Rajpal Singh by a margin of 27,023 votes.
SP candidate Shiv Chandra Prajapati wrested the Hamirpur assembly seat from the BJP. The SP candidate defeated BJP’s Jagdish Prasad Vyas by a huge margin of 68,556 votes. Vahaspati of the SP wrested the Sirathu Assembly seat from the BJP in
Kaushambi district. He defeated BJP’s Santosh Patel by 24,522 votes. Ruchiveera of SP won the Bijnor assembly seat from the BJP. The SP candidate defeated Hemendra Pal of the BJP by 10,567 votes. SP candidate Krishna Gopal Patel also wrested the Nighasan Assembly seat from the BJP in lakhimpur Kheri district. The SP candidate
defeated Ram Kumar Verma of the BJP by a margin of 18,976 votes.
The Balha seat was won by SP’s Banshidhar, who defeated the BJP candidate by a margin of over 25,000 votes.
The 11 Assembly seats to which bypolls were held had fallen vacant after 10 BJP MlAs and one of Apna Dal resigned from the membership of the House on being elected to the lok Sabha.
While the Bahujan Samaj Party did not contest the by-polls, Congress and SP had fielded candidates on all 11 Assembly seats, whereas BJP contested on 10, leaving one seat for Apna Dal.
In Mainpuri, the BSP and Congress had not fielded their candidates. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said the people had rejected the communal forces and had supported the development agenda of the state Government.
Elated by the results, SP spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said the Modi wave had abated and now the people had shown the BJP its real place.
BJP state president laxmikant Bajpai, while accepting the defeat, said the party would honour the people’s verdict. “We will analyse the reason for the defeat and will certainly take a lesson from it,” he said.
Congress leader and MlA Rita Bahuguna Joshi described the loss of the BJP as a good indication for the democracy. She said the people had taught the communal forces a lesson in the bypolls.