The Hindu Three hours after counting of votes began in 33 assembly constituencies spread across 10 States, two results were declared. Picture shows counting in progress at Gitam University in Medak, Andhra Pradesh. Photo: Mohd. Arif
The BJP on Tuesday suffered a major blow in the Assembly by-elections in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat, the States it had swept in the Lok Sabha polls four months ago, losing 13 of the 24 seats held by it.
Considered yet another test of popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Tuesday’s reverses in the by-elections come after the party’s disappointing performance in the Assembly by-elections in Bihar, Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh in the last two months.
Out of the 32 Assembly seats across nine States for which counting of votes was taken up on Tuesday, BJP won 10, Congress seven and Samajwadi Party seven while the TDP, the Trinamool Congress, the AIUDF and the CPI(M) bagged one each. One seat in Sikkim was won by an Independent. In three seats in UP where results were awaited, the BJP was leading in two and Samajwadi Party in one.
It was Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP was on a high after a near-total sweep of the 80 Lok Sabha seats, that delivered a humiliating blow to the saffron party as it lost seven of the 11 seats held by it, including one held by its ally Apna Dal.
The BSP’s absence in the by-elections had made it a virtual straight fight between the SP and the BJP in the politically crucial State.
Equally crushing was the defeat in Rajasthan where BJP 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 with Mr. Modi at the helm.
All the seats in Uttar Pradesh (11), Gujarat (9) and Rajasthan (4) were held by the BJP and the bypolls were necessitated after the MLAs were elected to the Lok Sabha.
Gloating over the BJP’s reverses, the Congress and the SP called it as a defeat of the communal forces. They said people had rejected the Modi government and the BJP’s “politics of polarisation”.
The BJP, which is hoping to do well in the coming Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana, conceded that the bypoll results were not up to its expectations and said that people had voted on local issues.
The only solace for the BJP on an otherwise dismal day was its entry into the West Bengal Assembly.
BJP candidate Shamik Bhattacharya won the Basirhat Dakshin seat in North 24-parganas district by a margin of 1,742 votes against his nearest Trinamool Congress rival and former Indian soccer captain Dipendu Biswas. The seat was earlier held by the CPI(M).
The BJP retained the Vadodara Lok Sabha seat, vacated by Mr. Modi, albeit with a reduced margin. Ranjanben Bhatt thumped her Congress rival Narendra Rawat by over 3.29 lakh votes. Mr. 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 the ruling SP, Tej Pratap Singh, the grand nephew of Mulayam Singh Yadav, defeated the BJP’s Prem Singh Skahkya by a margin of more than 3.21 lakh votes.
Mr. Yadav had vacated the seat after he chose to retain Azamgarh.
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.
In Uttar Pradesh, out of 11 Assembly seats, the SP won seven seats and the BJP one. In Gujarat, the BJP won six seats and the Congress three, while in Rajasthan the Congress bagged three and the BJP one. In Andhra Pradesh, the ruling TDP retained the Nandigama seat.
In West Bengal, the Trinamool and the BJP won one seat each. The BJP also made other 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 R.N. 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.
Last month, the saffron party suffered a 4-6 defeat at the hands of the RJD-JD(U)-Congress alliance in Bihar and yielded two strongholds to the Congress in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh in the by-elections. In July, it lost all the three Assembly seats in Uttarakhand to the Congress in the by-elections.
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