Ahead of the high-stakes meeting elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, the BJP on Sunday acquired a shot at bypolls to seven meeting constituencies throughout six states – it retained three seats in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha. , and snatched one from the Congress in Haryana.
The most-watched contest was within the Munugod meeting seat of Telangana, the place Congress MLA Okay Raj Gopal Reddy resigned and joined the BJP, forcing a by-election and the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (Bharat Rashtra Samithi). An indication broke out between the BJP and the BJP. Okay Prabhakar Reddy of TRS survived the preliminary scare of BJP, however BJP got here second.
The Congress was worn out, and its candidate Palvai Shravanthi Reddy failed to save lots of his deposit. Significantly, the Bharat Jodi Yatra led by Rahul Gandhi was in Telangana and the celebration had claimed big help within the state.
The TRS and the BJP had pulled out all of the stops to win the bypolls, with the high-decibel marketing campaign finally ending up with an unprecedented 93 per cent turnout. The counting of votes was a see-saw affair, with TRS and BJP buying and selling leads. It was solely after the fifth spherical that TRS began to advance.
At the top of counting, the tally was 97,006 votes for TRS, 86,697 for BJP and 23,906 for Congress.
After shedding two out of three bypolls to the BJP within the final two years, Munugode’s victory shall be a reduction for the TRS forward of subsequent yr’s meeting polls. Its alliances with the Left, and Raj Gopal Reddy, helped the TRS from the divergence of some votes the final time the Congress and BSP gained. BSP’s A Shankar Chari acquired 4,146 votes.
However, the reduction shall be short-lived because the outcomes are a transparent indicator that the TRS – which is planning an bold nationwide leap – could not take the BJP evenly within the state. The TRS had deployed 14 state ministers and at the very least 50-60 MLAs to cowl up Munugode and spotlight the state’s “national role model” plans.
The fall of the Congress was telling, as in 2018, Raj Gopal Reddy garnered 99,239 votes – over 35,000 over TRS’s Prabhakar Reddy – regardless of TRS’ sweep within the state. Then BJP’s Manohar Reddy acquired solely 12,725 votes.
Maharashtra’s consequence was not shocking. Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray’s candidate Rutuja Latke gained the Andheri (East) meeting by-election by an enormous margin, securing round 77 per cent of the entire votes. The BJP withdrew its candidate after giving a digital walkover to Latte, spouse of late Shiv Sena MLA Ramesh Latte.
However, what was attention-grabbing had been the votes solid by NOTA. While Latte’s nearest rival Rajesh Tripathi acquired just one,571 votes (1.8%), the None of the Above (NOTA) choice acquired 12,806 votes (14.8%).
The different high-profile contest was in Haryana the place Kuldeep Bishnoi’s exit from the Congress pressured a by-election in his household stronghold Adampur. Bishnoi is the son of former Haryana Chief Minister Bhajan Lal and his household has dominated the constituency since 1968.
Bishnoi’s son Bhavya Bishnoi, 29, gained on a BJP ticket by a margin of over 15,000 votes. Kuldeep, a two-time MP and four-time MLA, give up the Congress and joined the BJP in August.
Jai Prakash of Congress acquired 51,752 votes, adopted by INLD’s Kurdram Numberdar acquired 5,248 votes and AAP’s Satendra Singh acquired 3,420 votes.
In Bihar, the BJP retained Gopalganj, whereas the RJD retained Mokama, however each the events noticed a slender margin of victory. The BJP was towards a formidable social mixture of the Mahagathbandhan led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
While the margin of victory of RJD candidate in Mokama was lower than 17,000 for Neelam Devi, spouse of former MLA Anant Singh, BJP’s Kusum Devi, spouse of former MLA Subhash Singh, gained Gopalganj seat by a margin of simply 1,794 votes.
Recently, the Mokama by-election needed to be held after RJD MLA Anant Singh misplaced his meeting membership after being convicted in an Arms Act case. His household stronghold, his spouse’s victory was pre-determined, and the election was concerning the margin of victory. Anant had gained the seat in 2020 by over 35,000 votes.
In Gopalganj, Kusum Devi was profitable in defeating Mohan Prasad Gupta of the RJD-JD(U)-Congress. In 2020, BSP’s Anirudh Prasad alias Sadhu Yadav got here second with 40,000 votes, however this time his spouse Indira Yadav got here third with solely 8,854 votes. Interestingly, the AIMIM candidate acquired over 12,000 votes.
The BSP and AIMIM candidates collectively garnered over 20,000 votes, which the RJD alliance claimed not directly helped the BJP.
In Uttar Pradesh, Aman Giri of BJP defeated Vinay Tiwari of SP by a margin of 34,298 votes from Gola Gokarnath meeting seat in Lakhimpur Kheri district. This victory is a morale booster for the BJP forward of the Mainpuri Lok Sabha and Rampur Assembly by-elections.
Aman Giri (26), who made his political debut, noticed a larger victory margin than his father Arvind Giri (29,294 votes), whose demise necessitated a by-election.
In Odisha, the BJP retained the Dhamnagar meeting seat, defeating the ruling BJD by over 9,800 votes. This is the primary time after the 2019 meeting elections that the BJD has misplaced a bypoll within the state.
The by-election needed to be held in September because of the demise of BJP MLA Vishnu Charan Sethi. Sethi’s son Suryavanshi Suraj, who was the celebration’s candidate, acquired 80,351 votes, whereas BJD’s Abanti Das acquired 70,470 votes. Congress candidate Baba Harekrishna Sethi acquired solely 3,561 votes.
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
