Late Mulayam Singh Yadav’s daughter-in-law Dimple Yadav won big in the Samajwadi Party bastion of Mainpuri parliamentary constituency riding on the sympathy for the party patriarch whose death necessitated the bypoll.
The SP, however, lost its other stronghold of Rampur Sadar Assembly seat, represented by its biggest Muslim face Azam Khan, to the BJP, which also won the Kurhani Assembly seat in Bihar in a direct fight with the JD(U) post parting of ways with its erstwhile NDA partner.
Overall, of the six Assembly seats that went for bypolls in five States, the BJP and the Congress won two seats each while the RLD and the BJD won a seat apiece.
The Congress continued its dominance in Chhattisgarh winning the Bhanupratappur seat while the BJD bested the BJP in Padampur in Odisha. In Khatauli in UP, the RLD wrested the seat from the BJP with a thumping win.
Dimple Yadav, the wife of SP chief and former Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav, defeated her nearest rival and BJP candidate Raghuraj Singh Shakya by 2,88,461 votes in Mainpuri, a pocket borough of Mulayam’s family. The win provided some solace to Akhilesh after the defeat in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections early this year and the loss of Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats to the BJP in the June bypolls.
SP’s ally RLD’s Madan Bhaiya defeated his BJP rival Rajkumari Saini by a margin of over 22,000 votes in Khatauli. Saini is the wife of former BJP MLA Vikram Singh whose disqualification from the State Assembly following his conviction in a 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots case necessitated the by-election. Bhaiya polled 97,071 votes, while Saini received 74,996, according to the Election Commission.
The BJP, however, for the first time won from SP leader Azam Khan’s bastion Rampur Sadar which he represented before he was disqualified for his conviction in a hate speech case.
In Bihar, BJP candidate Kedar Prasad Gupta defeated Manoj Singh Kushwaha of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) by 3,645 votes in Kurhani seat. The JD(U) had snapped ties with the BJP four months ago. In the cliffhanger of a contest, Gupta polled 76,653 votes while Kushwaha finished with 73,008 votes.
The by-election was necessitated by the disqualification of RJD MLA Anil Kumar Sahani. The RJD is a constituent of the ruling Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance).
“The victory is an affirmation of the people’s faith in the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a resounding slap in the face of Mahagathbandhan which came to power by fraud and continues to cheat the masses”, said Samrat Chaudhary, senior BJP leader and former minister, as he joined the jubilations outside the counting centre in Muzaffarpur.
Congress’ Anil Sharma defeated Ashok Kumar Pincha of the BJP by a margin of 26,850 votes in Rajasthan’s Sardarshahar assembly, with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot describing it as “people’s seal of approval” on his government’s “good governance and public welfare schemes”. The bypoll was necessitated following the demise of senior Congress leader and MLA Bhanwarlal Sharma, who is Anil Sharma’s father.
Congress candidate Savitri Mandavi won from Bhanupratappur Assembly a margin of 21,171 votes against her nearest rival Brahmanand Netam of the BJP. Mandavi, the wife of Congress MLA Manoj Singh Mandavi whose death necessitated the by-election, polled 65,479 votes, while the BJP’s Netam secured 44,308 votes, he said. Former IPS officer Akbar Ram Korram, who contested as an independent, gave a spirited fight and polled 23,417 votes.
In Odisha’s Padampur, ruling BJD’s Barsha Singh Bariha won by a margin of 42,679 votes, defeating the BJP’s Pradip Purohit. Barsha is the daughter of late MLA Bijay Ranjan Singh Bariha whose death in October necessitated the by-poll. The BJP had recently lost the Dhamnagar bypolls to the BJP.