I.N.D.I.A. wins big in bypolls, restricts BJP to two seats

New Delhi: I.N.D.I.A. parties on Saturday bagged 10 out of 13 Assembly seats while restricting the BJP to just two in the keenly contested bypolls in seven states, which came a month after the Lok Sabha elections in which the saffron camp witnessed electoral decline.

The big gainers in the bypolls were Congress and Trinamool Congress, who won four seats each, while AAP, DMK and an independent won one each.

In Bihar, NDA-ally JD(U) faced an upset as it lost its sitting seat to an independent, who also relegated RJD to third position, while turncoats did not help the BJP much in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Congress won two – Dehra and Nalagarh – out of three seats in Himachal while the BJP bagged Hamirpur, in results that brought more political muscle to Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu with the party returning to its original strength of 40 MLAs after a few desertions.

Sukhu’s wife Kamlesh Thakur won from Dehra while the BJP won Hamirpur, much to the comfort of former union minister and sitting MP from the area Anurag Thakur. The bypolls were necessitated after three independents withdrew support to Congress and joined the BJP.

Uttarakhand too gave cheers to the Congress, retaining Badrinath with Lakhapat Singh Butola defeating Rajendra Singh Bhandari, its sitting MLA who defected to the ruling BJP. It also wrested Manglaur seat – Qazi Mohd Nizamuddin defeating BJP’s Kartar Singh Bhadana – held by BSP where bypolls were held after the death of sitting MLA Sarwat Karim Ansari.

Congress sought to project a larger political message in the Badrinath victory saying that Hindutva followers were being electorally bashed up in places of significance to Hindu religion. Senior MP Manickam Tagore said that after winning Ayodhya, they had bagged Badrinath too, as he referred to the victory of the Samajwadi Party candidate in Faizabad Lok Sabha seat.

West Bengal also did not bring any good news for BJP as Trinamool Congress cemented its supremacy by wresting three seats from BJP – Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin and Bagda – where saffron party MLAs switched sides. It also retained Maniktala where bypoll was necessitated by the death of sitting MLA.

Trinamool fielded former BJP MLAs Krishna Kalyani from Raiganj and Mukut Mani Adhikari from Ranaghat Dakshin. In Bagda, which was vacated by BJP’s Biswajit Das who unsuccessfully fought Lok Sabha elections, it fielded Madhuparna Thakur while in Maniktala, it fielded Supti Pandey.

In Punjab’s Jalandhar West, AAP took revenge on Sheetal Angural, its MLA who defected to the BJP earlier this year, when its nominee Mohinder Bhagat trounced him by 37,325 votes. Incidentally, Bhagat was Angural's BJP rival in 2022.

The bypoll outcome is a relief for Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, who faced flak for the poor show in Lok Sabha elections, while both Congress and BJP would be soon looking at how it polled around 17-18,000 votes less than last time. Congress was pushed to third position.

In Bihar, independent Shankar Singh upset the calculations of both JD(U) and RJD by winning Rupauli seat by a margin of over 8,246 votes in the bypoll necessitated by the defection of JD(U) MLA Bima Bharti to RJD.

Bharti, who also lost the Purnea Lok Sabha election to independent Pappu Yadav, was relegated to third position while JD(U)'s KP Mandal came second. While filing nomination, former LJP MLA Singh had said that he was inspired by Pappu Yadav.

However, Madhya Pradesh’s Amarwara gave some solace to the BJP as turncoat candidate Kamlesh Pratap Shah, the Congress MLA who switched sides, won a tough contest after trailing for most part of the counting against Congress candidate Dheeran Sah Sukharam Das Invati.

The victory in Amarwara, which is part of Chhindwara, comes at a time Congress has been decimated in the Lok Sabha polls in the state and amid concerns over waning influence of senior Congress leader Kamal Nath in the region.

Tamil Nadu's Vikravandi saw DMK asserting its position in the state with its candidate Anniyur Siva emerging victorious against Pattali Makkal Katchi candidate Anbumani C by 67,757 votes. The bypolls were necessitated following the death of DMK MLA N Pugazhenthi.