NEW DELHI: Samajwadi Party won the Ghosi seat in Uttar Pradesh with the parties opposed to BJP winning four of the seven assembly seats for which bypolls were held on September 5. BJP won three seats in the results declared on Friday.
The bypolls in six states were significant in terms of opposition parties forging INDIA bloc to take on the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and also for atmospherics ahead of assembly polls in five states later this year. Leaders of INDIA bloc including Mamata Banerjee talked about their success in bypolls.
Opposition parties put up a united front in Ghosi in Uttar Pradesh and Dumri in Jharkhand while it was virtually a direct contest between the BJP and Congress in Bageshwar seat in Uttarakhand.
BJP won Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura and Bageshwar in Uttarakhand, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha won Dumri, Congress won Puthuppally in Kerala and the ruling Trinamool Congress won Dhugpuri in West Bengal.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav congratulated party candidate Sudhakar Singh for his performance in Ghosi assembly bypoll. He said it is a “victory” of the INDIA bloc and the momentum will continue in the Lok Sabha elections.
The bypoll in Ghosi was necessitated after Dara Singh Chauhan, who had won the seat in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls as Samajwadi Party candidate, came back to the BJP.
The Samajwadi Party candidate won by a big margin of 42,759 votes.
In Dhupguri seat in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress candidate Nirmal Chandra Roy defeated Bharatiya Janata Party’s Tapasi Roy by 4309 votes in a close contest. Nirmal Chandra Roy got 97,613 votes while the BJP candidate got 93,304 votes. The CPI-M also contested the seat and its candidate finished a distant third.
Reacting to the result, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said “BJP lost and INDIA party won.”
“North Bengal is totally with us…in Dhupguri, it was a seat of BJP and we won the election. I congratulate all the people of Dhupguri. So wherever BJP lost and INDIA party won, I congratulate all of them,” Banerjee said.
Bypoll was held in Dhupguri due to death of the BJP’s Bishnu Pada Ray.
Chandy Oommen, son of former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, won from Puthuppally defeating Communist Party of India (Marxist) candidate Jaick C Thomas by 37,719 votes
“Just like my father, my politics will be people-oriented. I’ve seen the work of my father and I would like to go in that way. I will continue what my father started,” he said. Oomen Chandy’s death necessitated the bypolls in Puthupally.
In Tripura, the BJP wrested Boxanagar from CPI-M. The seat fell vacant on death of CPI-M MLA Samsul Haque.
BJP’s Tafajjal Hossain won the seat from Tripura Boxanagar by defeating his Communist Party of India-Marxist rival Mizan Hossain by 30237 votes.
The BJP won tribal-dominated Dhanpur with its candidate Bindu Debnath defeating CPI-M’s Kaushik Chanda by 18871 votes. Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha said people have trust in BJP.
“We never thought we would get this result…We saw appeasement politics, the trend shows that people have trust in the BJP… People have shown trust in PM’s ‘Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas’ slogan,” Saha said.
“The victory shows that we can win even in the minority areas… Everyone’s effort is behind this victory… This shows that the people have accepted the double-engine government…The people of Tripura have shown what democracy is… We have won democratically,” he said.
The ruling BJP retained the Bageshwar assembly seat in Uttarakhand by a narrow margin of 2405 votes. It’s candidate Parwati Dass got 33247 votes and Congress’ Basant Kumar got 30842 votes.
The bypoll was necessitated due to death of BJP MLA Chandan Ram Dass.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami thanked voters of Bageshwar.
“I want to extend my gratitude to the voters of Bageshwar and pay tributes to Chandan Das. We will complete his uncompleted work and his dreams,” he said.
The bypoll in Jharkhand’s Dumri was necessitated due to death of JMM MLA Jagarnath Mahto. Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s Bebi Devi won the seat by 17,153 votes defeating AJSU’s Yashoda Devi. (ANI)