The BJP-led NDA has won seven of the 12 bypolls, including the communally-sensitive Muzaffarnagar constituency in Uttar Pradesh (UP). The by-elections were held for 12 seats across eight States, results of which were declared Tuesday.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) suffered a blow in UP losing two of the three seats it had while the Congress was shocked in Karnataka where it lost two of the three seats in the Assembly by-elections.
Dealing a blow to the Congress in Madhya Pradesh, the ruling BJP won the Maihar Assembly seat with party nominee Narayan Tripathi defeating the main Opposition party’s Manish Patel by a margin of 27,544 votes.
In Tripura, the ruling CPI(M) won the Birganj Assembly by-election in Gomati district with party candidate Parimal Debnath defeating his nearest rival BJP candidate by a margin of 10,597 votes. The BJP, however, pushed the Congress
to third position.
In Bihar, the ruling RJD-JD(U)-Congress coalition faced an embarrassment when the Congress candidate was defeated in Harlakhi constituency by BJP ally RlSP.
In the other five States, ruling parties, BJP, Shiv Sena, Akali Dal, TRS and CPI(M), won in the by-elections for one seat each in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Telangana and Tripura
respectively.
Muzaffarnagar, where the BJP’s Kapil Dev Agarwal defeated SP’s Gaurav Swarup by a margin of 7,352 votes, is considered a test case for the saffron party which had mounted a strident campaign on the Hindutva issues ever since the communal riots
of 2013 there.
In Deoband, the seat of Islamic religious school, Darul Uloom, the Congress defeated the SP when its candidate Mavia Ali defeated Meena Rana. The ruling SP managed to retain the Bikapur (Faizabad) seat when its candidate Anand Sen Yadav defeated RlD candidate Munna Singh Chauhan.
The Opposition BJP in Karnataka, where Assembly elections are due in 2018, beat Congress in a direct fight when it retained Hebbal seat in Bengaluru. But the two parties snatched each other’s seat in Devadurga and Bidar.
The results in Karnataka are seen as a blow to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah considering the fact that the Congress had invested heavily in the contest to wrest seats from the BJP.
The Congress casualty in Karnataka included CK Abdul Rahman Sharief, grandson of late Railway Minister CK Jaffer Sharief, who lost to BJP’s YA Narayanaswamy by a margin of 19,149 votes in Hebbal.
In Bidar, the Congress’ Rahim Khan triumphed by a margin of 22,721 votes, defeating his closest opponent Prakash Khandre of BJP. K Shivana Gouda Nayak of the BJP defeated A Rajashekhra Nayak of the Congress by a margin of 16,871 votes in Devadurga.
The grand alliance in Bihar suffered a setback when Sudhanshu Shekhar, a candidate of the RlSP headed by Upendra Singh Kushwaha, defeated his Congress rival Mohammad Shabir by a margin 18,650 votes.
Dealing a blow to the Congress in Madhya Pradesh, the ruling BJP won the Maihar Assembly seat with party nominee Narayan Tripathi defeating the main Opposition party’s Manish Patel by a margin of 27,544 votes.
The outcome came as a double jolt for the Congress as Tripathi, after winning the seat in 2013 Assembly polls, had quit the party to join the BJP during the 2014 lok Sabha elections. later, he resigned from the seat which necessitated the bypoll.
The victory came as a morale-booster for the BJP after it conceded to the Congress the Jhabua lok Sabha seat in a bypoll shortly after the drubbing in the Bihar Assembly elections.
In the neighbouring Maharashtra, ruling alliance partner Shiv Sena retained the Palghar Assembly seat as its candidate Amit Ghoda defeated his nearest Congress rival Rajendra Gavit by a margin of 18,948 votes in a keen contest.
In Punjab, which also goes to polls next year, the ruling SAD won the bypoll to Khadoor Sahib Assembly seat, with party candidate Ravinder Singh Brahmpura defeating his nearest rival Independent candidate Bhupinder Singh by a margin of 65,664 votes. Main Opposition parties Congress and Aam Aadmi Party had stayed out of the contest.
In Telangana, continuing its winning spree since it rode to power in the 2014 Assembly elections, the ruling TRS wrested Narayankhed seat in Medak district from the Congress with a massive margin of over 53,625 votes.