By-poll results: Incumbent prevails

The general trend in results from the 46 seats in 13 states where by-elections were held is in favour of the ruling parties, just as it was in the case of Assembly elections in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand. By-elections are known to favour incumbent governments but this time, the rule may have been true to a greater degree. Politically, the overall outcome could be considered to be against the Congress and the I.N.D.I.A. bloc though in individual states, the party may have gained, as in Karnataka where it won all the three seats. Out of the party’s 13 sitting seats in eight states it lost nine, though it gained three new seats. It recorded a big victory in Wayanad where Priyanka Gandhi won with a huge margin and managed to retain its Nanded Lok Sabha seat in Maharashtra amidst a wave in favour of the Mahayuti. While it lost three sitting seats to the AAP, it took one from that party in Punjab. The I.N.D.I.A. bloc lost three sitting seats, including an RJD stronghold, to the NDA in Bihar.

The BJP did well wherever it was the ruling party, especially in UP, Rajasthan and Assam. The victory in UP is especially important for the party which suffered reverses in the state in the Lok Sabha elections. The main reason for the party’s loss of majority in the Lok Sabha was the loss of seats in UP. It had also raised questions about Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s leadership. The outcome of the by-elections may have assured the party that its support base has not eroded, at least in terms of the Assembly seats, and reaffirmed Yogi Adityanath’s position. It won six seats out of nine in the state, while it only had four. The Samajwadi Party (SP) which had done well in the Lok Sabha election could win only two out of the nine it contested from.

The BJP gained in Rajasthan also by winning five of seven seats, snatching three sitting seats from the Congress and one from the RLP (Rashtriya Loktantrik Dal). As in UP, the victory may have given a political boost to the party in Rajasthan, where its Lok Sabha tally had dropped in May. In Assam, the party and its allies made a clean sweep of the five seats. The domination of the ruling party was also seen in West Bengal where the Trinamool Congress (TMC) won all six seats, though the government was on the back foot over the murder of a doctor in a Kolkata hospital. The CPM retained its seat in Kerala. The results have favoured incumbency, irrespective of the politics.