NEW DELHI – The by elections on seven seats spread across six states have come as a setback for the Congress which lost both its two seats in Telangana and Haryana, while the BJP managed to gain one seat and managed to win four seats on offer.
While the BJP bagged four seats, the RJD, TRS, and Udhhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena faction won one seat each.
BJP retained Uttar Pradesh’s Gola Gokarannath seat, Bihar’s Gopalganj and Odisha’s Dhamnagar seats. It also added Haryana’s Adampur seat to its tally, which it wrested from the Congress.
Congress also lost Telangana’s Munugode seat to Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).
The Tejashwi Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal has won in Bihar’s Mokama and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena faction won in Mumbai’s Andheri East seat.
None of these contests though are likely to upset the equations for current state governments.
However, with the regional parties looking to put together a united front for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which are just 18 months away, the results may serve as a shot in the arm for them.
Prior to the by elections, the BJP held three, the Congress two, while the Shiv Sena and the RJD had won one seat each.
BJP candidate Bhavya Bishnoi won with a lead of over 15,000 votes over his nearest rival and Congress candidate Jai Prakash in Adampur.
In Odisha’s Dhamnagar by-poll, BJP’s Suraj Suryabanshi won.
TRS’ Prabhakar Reddy defeated Rajagopal Reddy of BJP by a margin of over 10,000 votes at Telengana’s Munugode seat.
BJP candidate Kusum Devi won the Gopalganj by poll in Bihar. She defeated RJD candidate Mohan Prasad Gupta in a tight contest by just over 1,700 votes.
RJD candidate Neelam Devi, wife of Anant Singh who was disqualified after being convicted of illegally keeping guns, won in Bihar’s Mokama.
Uddhav Thackeray’s faction won its first election today. Rutuja Latke, the candidate of the Shiv Sena Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray faction, won the by-election in Andheri (East) in Mumbai by a massive margin of over 66,000 votes.
The BJP retained Gola Gokarannath seat in Uttar Pradesh, which fell vacant after the death of its MLA Arvind Giri on September 6.
The BSP and Congress kept away, resulting in a direct fight between Arvind Giri’s son Aman Giri (BJP) and the Samajwadi Party’s Vinay Tiwari, a former MLA.
