The result of the seven bypolls across six States on Sunday saw continued ascendancy of the BJP, marginalisation of the Congress, and a setback for the newly-stitched Mahagathbandhan in Bihar.
Among the seven seats where bypolls were held, the BJP earlier held three seats and the Congress two, while the Shiv Sena and the RJD had one each.
The BJP retained its three seats and wrested one from the Congress, which lost both the seats it contested — Adampur in Haryana and Mudugode in Telangana.
The Congress had won both the seats in the last Assembly polls and the elections were necessitated there due to the defection of its winning candidates to the BJP.
While the BJP won the Adampur seat, the TRS captured the Mudugode seat after a keen contest with the BJP. The Congress finished distant third. The result will boost the morale of the BJP which had won just one seat in the 2018 Assembly polls in the State. The poor performance of the Congress shows that Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, which passed through the State, did nothing to arrest the decline of the Congress.
For the BJP, winning the Gopalganj seat will also be seen as a great success since its candidates was pitted against the might of seven-party Grand Alliance. The BJP candidate capitalised on the sympathy factor and also gained from damage inflicted on the RJD nominee by the BSP and AIMIM. The BSP had fielded Indira Devi, wife of RJD supremo Lalu Prasad’s brother-in-law Sadhu Yadav, who wielded considerable sway at the home turf of the Lalu’s family.
The BJP will also feel satisfied with its performance in Gola Gokrannath in Lakhimpur Kheri which was in the news last year after Union Minister Ajay Teni’s son was involved in an accident-related killing of four farmers. Incidentally, the BJP candidate won the seat by a bigger margin this time around.
The outcome shows that the efforts put up by the BJP leaders paid off. While BJP fielded its top leaders -Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in UP and Manohar Lal Khattar in Haryana- SP chief Akhilesh Yadav did not campaign at Gola Gokrannath and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar kept away from campaigning at both Mokama and Gopalganj.
The result also underlines that fact that sympathy factors influenced the outcome in a big way. Four of the winners-Rutuja Latke (Shiv Sena, Andheri East), Anand Giri (BJP,Gola Gokrannath),Kusum Devi (BJP, Gopalganj) and Suryabanshi Suraj (BJP,Dhamnagar, Odisha)were contesting on seats which fell vacant due to the demise of their kins.
In Telangana,TRS candidate Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy won Munugode Assembly seat by a margin of over 10,000 votes over the BJP candidate K Rajagopal Reddy.
The Munugode by-election result reflected continued hold of the TRS on its turf vis-Ã -vis the BJP, which is trying hard to upstage the TRS in Telangana, due for next year’s Assembly polls.
The Congress had won the Munugode seat in 2018, and the by-election was necessitated as its MLA K Rajagopal Reddy resigned from the party and joined the BJP as its candidate in the bypoll.
Reddy conceded defeat and accepted the verdict even when two more rounds of counting were left
RashtriyaJanata Dal (RJD)’s Neelam Devi retained Mokama seat in Bihar defeating the BJP candidate by 16,000 votes.
BJP’s Kusum Devi retained Gopalganj seat in Bihar against the RJD but with a slender margin of 1,794 votes.
BJP candidate Bhavya Bishnoi, the grandson of former Haryana Chief Minister Bhajanal, emerged victorious in the Adampur Assembly by-election with a significant margin of 16,606 votes defeating Congress candidate Jai Prakash.
The bypoll was necessitated after former Haryana chief minister Bhajan Lal’s younger son Kuldeep Bishnoi resigned as MLA and switched from the Congress to the BJP in August.
In Gola Gokarannath, BJP candidate Aman Giri won by defeating his nearest rival and Samajwadi Party candidate by over 34,000 votes.
Rutuja Latke, the candidate of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), won the bypoll to Andheri (East) Assembly seat in Mumbai.
BJP and Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction) had withdrawn from the contest in ‘deference’ to Rutuja Latke,the widow contestant of former Shiv Sena MLA Ramesh Latke. .
BJP’s Suryabanshi Suraj won Dhamnagar constituency in Odisha against the BJD candidate. The poll was necessitated due to the death of BJP MLA Bishnu Charan Sethi. The saffron party fielded Sethi’s son Suryabanshi Suraj as its candidate. He got 80,090 votes as against 70, 288 polled by BJD’s Abanti Das, the lone woman among the total of five candidates in Dhamnagar.
Barring Andheri East in Mumbai, all other seats witnessed a keen contest between the BJP and regional parties TRS, SP, RJD and the BJD.
Among the seven seats where bypolls were held, the BJP earlier held three seats and the Congress two, while the Shiv Sena and the RJD had one each.
The Mokama seat, in Bihar, fell vacant after Anant Singh, the sitting MLA, was dismissed due to a conviction in a criminal case. The contest in Gopalganj, also in Bihar, was necessitated due to the death of sitting BJP MLA Subhash Singh.
The bypoll was necessitated in Gola Gokarannath Assembly seat of Lakhimpur Kheri district following the death of sitting MLA Arvind Giri.
The Assembly by elections of November 3 included “three political turncoats” --two in Haryana and one in Telangana.