The BJP on Tuesday suffered a jolt in the Assembly by-elections in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat, the three States it swept in the lok Sabha polls four months ago. The BJP lost 13 of the 23 seats it held, but opened its account in West Bengal Assembly after 15 years. The BJP also wrested one seat from the Congress in Assam and retained the Vadodara lok Sabah seat vacated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Samajwadi Party and the TRS won the Mainpuri and Medak lok Saba seat respectively.
Out of the 32 Assembly seats across nine States for which counting of votes was taken up on Tuesday, the BJP won 12, the Congress seven and the SP eight, while the TDP, the Trinamool Congress, the AIUDF and the CPI(M) bagged one each. One seat in Sikkim was won by an Independent candidate. Counting in Antagarh in Chhattisgarh, held by BJP, will be taken up on September 20.
In Uttar Pradesh, out of 11 Assembly seats, the SP won eight seats and the BJP three. In Gujarat, the BJP won six seats and the Congress three, while in Rajasthan, the Congress bagged three and BJP one. In Andhra Pradesh, ruling TDP retained the Nandigama seat.
The most unnerving results for the BJP came from Uttar Pradesh where it lost seven of the 10 seats held by it as well as one belonging to its ally Apna Dal to the ruling Samajwadi Party. Under the Modi-wave, the BJP had won 71 lok Sabha seats and together with the Apna Dal bagged 73 of 80 lok Sabha seats in the State on May 16 this year.
The big setback in UP came from Rohaniya Assembly segment, part of Prime Minister’s constituency Varanasi. Here, BJP’s ally Apna Dal lost to the SP.
Tuesday’s reverses for the party followed party’s modest performance in the Assembly by-elections in Uttarakhand, Bihar, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh in the last two months.
In Rajasthan, where the BJP had won all the 25 lok Sabha seats, it conceded three of the four seats to the Congress, which also managed to wrest three of the nine seats in Gujarat, where the elections were held for the first time in 12 years sans Narendra Modi. All the seats in Uttar Pradesh (11), Gujarat (9) and Rajasthan (4) were held by BJP and the bypolls were necessitated after the MlAs were elected to the lok Sabha.
Hoping to win the coming Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana, the BJP admitted that the bypoll results were not up to expectations and said that people had voted on local issues. "It is a lesson and party needs to examine the results," said one of the BJP leaders.
Cheered by BJP's defeat, the Congress and the SP called it as a defeat of the communal forces. They said people had rejected the Narendra Modi Government and BJP's "politics of polarisation".
The BJP retained the Vadodara lok Sabha seat, vacated by Prime Minister Modi, albeit with a reduced margin. Ranjanben Bhatt thumped her Congress rival Narendra Rawat by over 3.29 lakh votes. Modi had won the seat by 5.7 lakh votes.
In the other two lok Sabha by-elections, Mainpuri in Uttar Pradesh, the stronghold of ruling SP, Tej Pratap Singh, the grand nephew of Mulayam Singh Yadav, defeated BJP's Prem Singh Skahkya by a margin of more than 3.21 lakh votes. Mulayam had vacated the seat, retaining Azamgarh lok Sabha seat.
In Medak lok Sabha constituency in Telangana, the ruling TRS retained the seat vacated by party chief K Chandrasekhar Rao. Its candidate K Prabhakar Reddy won by 3,61,277 votes.
BSP's apparent absence in the by-elections in UP had made it a virtual straight contest between the BJP and the SP, which staged a comeback despite its humiliating defeat in the lok Sabha polls following complete mishandling of communal riots in the State in the recent months.
The BJP made advances in eastern region wresting Silchar constituency in Assam from the Congress. The All India United Democratic Front and the ruling Congress retained Jamunamukh and lakhipur seats respectively in the State.
The CPI(M) won the Manu (ST) Assembly constituency in Tripura, while Independent candidate RN Chamling, brother of Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling, won Rangang-Yangang Assembly seat in Sikkim by 708 votes defeating his nearest Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) nominee.
Together with Tuesday's result, the BJP has suffered electoral reverses in all the three rounds of by-elections conducted after it swept the lok Sabha polls four months ago.
The first bypoll were held in Congress-ruled Uttarakhand close on the heels of the May 16 lok Sabha verdict where it lost all the three assembly seats.
In the second round, the BJP lost six out of the 10 seats in Bihar, despite its spectacular show in the lok Sabha polls.