The Bharatiya Janata Party 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 today, the BJP won 10, the Congress seven and Samajwadi Party seven while the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, the Trinamool Congress, the All India United Democratic Front and the Communist Party of India-Marxist 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 the Samajwadi Party in one.
Uttar Pradesh: 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 Bahujan Samaj Party’s absence in the by-elections had made it a virtual straight fight between the SP and the BJP in the politically crucial state.
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.
Gloating over the BJP's reverses, the Congress and the Samajwadi Party called it as a defeat of the communal forces. They said people had rejected the Modi government and 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 expectations and said that people had voted on local issues.
The only solace for BJP on an otherwise dismal day was its entry in West Bengal assembly.
In UP, among the seats lost by the BJP were Bijnor, Thakurdwara, Nighasan, Hamirpur, Charkhari, Sirathu, Balha. It retained Saharapur (city seat).
Charkhari was earlier held by Union Minister Uma Bharati. In Gujarat, the BJP lost Dessa, Mangrol and Khambalia seats to the Congress. It managed to retain Maninagar, Tankara, Talaja, Anand, Kheda and Limkheda assembly seats.
Rajasthan: In Rajasthan, the BJP lost in Nasirabad, Weir and Surajgarh assembly constituencies. It retained Kota city. In West Benagl, whereas the Trinamool Congress bagged the prestigious Chowringhee seat. TMC candidate Nayana Bandopadhyay won by a margin of 14344 votes against her nearest rival BJP's Ritesh Tiwari.
Equally crushing was the defeat in Rajasthan where the BJP conceded three of the four seats to 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 Modi.
Telangana: elangana, the TRS again asserted its supremacy in Medak Lok Sabha constituency with its nominee K Prabhakar Reddy winning by 3,61,277 votes. Reddy polled 5,71,800 votes, pushing Congress' V Sunita Laxma Reddy (2,10,523) and the BJP's T Jayaprakash Reddy (1,86,334) to second and third positions.
The Medak Lok Sabha seat was vacated by K Chandrasekhar Rao after he became chief minister. Rao had won with a margin of 3.97 lakh votes in the May elections.
Assam: The AIDUF's Abdur Rahim Ajmal won the Jamunamukh seat defeating Congress' Bashir Uddin Laskar by 22,959 votes in Assam.
AIUDF President Badruddin Ajmal's son Abdur Rahim Ajmal retained the seat polling 62,153 votes. The ruling Congress retained Lakhipur seat as its candidate Rajdeep Goala defeated his nearest BJP rival Sanjay Thakur by 9172 votes garnering 40,090 votes, while Thakur got 30918 votes.
In Silchar, however, BJP's Dilip Kumar Paul is ahead of Arun Dutta Majumdar of Congress. Telugu Desam Party's Tangirala Sowmya won the Nandigama assembly bypoll in Andhra Pradesh by 74,827 votes.
Riding on the sympathy wave, Sowmya, a software engineer, got 99,748 votes. The by-election was necessitated following the death of Sowmya's father due to a cardiac arrest.
Tripura: CPI-M candidate Prabhat Chowdhury trounced his nearest INC candidate Mailafru Mog in Manu (ST) constituency in Tripura. The constituency fell vacant after former Industries and Commerce Minister Jitendra Chowdhury was elected to the Lok Sabha.
.jpg)