In the four-cornered contest in the bypolls to 11 UP assembly seats, the results of which were declared on Thursday, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) managed to win eight seats.
While the Samajwadi Party candidates easily won the Zaidpur seat in Barabanki and Rampur Sadar seat, its candidate wrested the Jalalpur seat in Ambedkarnagar from Bahujan Samaj Party by a wafer-thin margin of 790 votes.
The BJP won the Lucknow Cantonment, Balha (Bahraich), Iglas (Aligarh), Manikpur (Chitrakoot), Gangoh (Saharanpur), Ghosi (Mau) and Govindnagar (Kanpur Nagar) assembly seats, its ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) clinched the Pratapgarh seat.
Samajwadi Party was the main beneficiary in this bypoll as it retained Rampur seat and wrested Zaidpur seat from the BJP.
Despite BSP performing badly in most of the constituencies and coming fourth, it gave a stiff fight to the SP in its pursuit to retain the Jalalpur seat of Ambedkarnagar.
On the other hand, Congress increased its vote share and lost the Gangoh seat to the BJP by a small margin.
Congress leaders alleged irregularities during counting for the Gangoh seat, and a delegation of the party even made a representation to the Election Commission in Lucknow.
As far as poll percentage is concerned, BJP got around 35 per cent of votes followed by SP (22 per cent), BSP (16.30 per cent) and Congress (12 per cent).
As per the Election Commission, BJP candidate Kirat Singh defeated his nearest Congress rival Nooman Masood by over 5,400 votes in Gangoh.
In the prestigious Rampur seat, SP leader Mohammad Azam Khan’s wife Tazeen Fatma retained the seat by defeating her BJP rival Bharat Bhushan by over 7,700 votes.
BJP’s Raj Kumar Sahyogi retained the Iglas seat in Aligarh by defeating BSP candidate Abhay Kumar by over 25,900 votes.
In Lucknow Cantonment, BJP’s Suresh Chandra Tiwari trounced SP candidate Major Ashish Chaturvedi by over 35,400 votes.
BJP candidate Surendra Maithani defeated Congress candidate Karishma Thakur in Govindnagar seat in Kanpur Nagar by over 21,200 votes.
In Manikpur, BJP’s Anand Shukla defeated SP candidate Nirbhay Singh Patel by over 12,800 votes.
In Pratapgarh, BJP ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) candidate Rajkumar Pal defeated SP candidate Brajesh Verma by over 29,700 votes.
Springing a surprise, SP wrested the Zaidpur seat in Barabanki from the BJP, with its candidate Gaurav Kumar defeating BJP’s Ambrish by 4,165 votes.
SP candidate Rajesh Singh also wrested Jalalpur seat in Ambedkarnagar from BSP’s Chhaya Verma by 790 votes.
In Balha seat in Bahraich district, BJP’s Saroj Sonkar defeated SP candidate Kiran Bharati by over 45,600 votes while in Ghosi seat in Mau district, BJP’s Vijay Kumar Rajbhar defeated independent Sudhakar Singh by over 3,000 votes.
Barring Ghosi, the bypolls were necessitated as the sitting MLAs resigned from the UP Assembly after being elected to the Lok Sabha. The Ghosi seat fell vacant after the resignation of MLA Phagu Chauhan, who was appointed Governor of Bihar.
The BJP currently has 302 members in the 403-member Assembly, Apna Dal (Sonelal) has eight MLAs, SP 47, BSP 18, and the Congress seven.