In a significant shot in the arm, the INDIA bloc has emerged victorious in the recent bypolls, winning 10 out of 13 seats. The NDA managed to secure only two seats, while an Independent candidate won in Bihar’s Rupauli Assembly constituency.
The Congress won four seats – two in BJP-ruled Uttarakhand and two in Himachal Pradesh. The TMC bagged all the four seats in West Bengal while the AAP won the Jalandhar West seat in Punjab and the DMK emerged victorious in the Vikravandi constituency in Tamil Nadu.The BJP won the Hamirpur seat in Himachal Pradesh while Independent candidate Shankar Singh clinched the Rupauli seat in Bihar.
The Congress hailed the results, saying they “reflect the changing political climate in the country” and it has now become clear that the web of “fear and illusion woven by the BJP has been broken”.
West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee thanked the people and said the party will dedicate the by-election and the Lok Sabha poll victories to the “martyrs” on its July 21 Martyrs’ Day rally.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin referred to the INDIA bloc’s good show and said BJP should learn lessons from its defeats. “BJP must realise that without respecting regional sentiments it cannot run the government and the party,” he said. He described his party’s victory as people’s “thanksgiving” to the DMK regime’s welfare schemes.
Congress candidate Kamlesh Thakur, wife of Himachal Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, defeated BJP’s Hoshiyar Singh to win the Dehra seat by a margin of 9,399 votes. Hardeep Singh Bawa also defeated his nearest rival and BJP candidate K L Thakur in Nalagarh by 8,990 votes. Bawa is a five-time Indian National Trade Union Congress president. BJP’s Ashish Sharma, however, managed to win the Hamirpur seat defeating Congress candidate Pushpinder Verma.
The Trinamool Congress continued its winning streak from the recent Lok Sabha elections by sweeping the West Bengal bypolls, wresting Raiganj, Bagda and Ranaghat Dakshin seats from the BJP and securing a record victory margin in Maniktala.
TMC candidates Krishna Kalyani, Madhuparna Thakur and Mukut Mani Adhikari won the Raiganj, Bagda, and Ranaghat Dakshin seats respectively, while Supti Pandey won Maniktala in North Kolkata.
In Punjab, Mohinder Bhagat of the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won the Jalandhar West seat by defeating BJP nominee Sheetal Angural by a margin of 37,325 votes. The seat fell vacant after Angural resigned as the AAP legislator and joined the BJP in March.
In Tamil Nadu, the ruling DMK’s Anniyur Siva emerged victorious in the Vikravandi assembly constituency, defeating NDA constituent PMK’s Anbumani C by 67,757 votes.
In Madhya Pradesh, BJP’s Kamlesh Pratap Shah won the Amarwara assembly seat by a margin of 3,027 votes against Congress’s Dheeran Sah Invati, while in Bihar, Independent candidate Shankar Singh won the Rupauli seat, defeating JD(U)’s Kaladhar Prasad Mandal by 8,246 votes.