Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, July 13: Continuing its good show from the recent Lok Sabha elections, the opposition INDIA bloc claimed 10 of the 13 seats in Assembly by-elections in seven states while the BJP won two seats and one seat went to an independent.
The most impressive performance was of the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress in West Bengal which captured all the four seats, and most of them with huge margins, including in three seats that were won by the BJP in the last state Assembly elections.
The Congress which had only two of the 13 seats that went for bypolls, returned with four seats, two each in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, while the Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab and the DMK in Tamil Nadu retained one seat each. The BJP could win only one of the three seats in Himachal Pradesh and one in Madhya Pradesh while losing both the seats in Uttarakhand.
Two of the three independents who had resigned and re-contested as BJP candidates lost their seats in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly while only one won. The NDA alliance partner Janata Dal (United) also lost its seat in Bihar which went to an independent defeating both the JD(U) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) nominees.
The polling for the by-elections were held on July 10 in West Bengal (four seats), Himachal Pradesh (three seats), Uttarakhand (two seats), and Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar and Tamil Nadu (one seat each) and the counting of votes was taken up on Saturday in all the 13 seats. The Congress, TMC, AAP and DMK are among the INDIA bloc parties that fielded candidates in the bypolls.
Mohinder Bhagat of the ruling AAP emerged victorious in Punjab by defeating BJP’s Sheetal Angural. Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (DMK) Anniyur Siva defeated PMK’s Anbumani C in Tamil Nadu’s Vikravandi assembly seat. The Trinamool Congress on Saturday wrested Raiganj, Bagda, Maniktala and Ranaghat Dakshin assembly seats from the BJP in West Bengal bypolls.
Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s wife and Congress candidate Kamlesh Thakur defeated BJP’s Hoshiyar Singh. In Nalagarh, Congress’ Hardeep Singh Bawa won against BJP’s KL Thakur. The BJP won the Hamirpur seat with its candidate Ashish Sharma defeating Congress’ Pushpinder Verma.
The Congress’ candidates for Uttarakhand’s Badrinath and Manglaur bypolls — Lakhpat Singh Butola and Qazi Nizamuddin have also secured victories.
BJP’s Kamlesh Pratap Shahi defeated Congress’ Dheeran Shah Invati in Madhya Pradesh’s Amarwar. Independent candidate Shankar Singh defeated JD(U)’s Kaladhar Prasad Mandal in Bihar’s Rupauli.
Himachal Pradesh witnessed a notable debut as Kamlesh Thakur, wife of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, secured victory in the Dehra constituency. The Congress further strengthened its position by claiming the Nalagarh seat, while the BJP managed to secure a win in Hamirpur.
Chief Minister Sukhu, after the win said that people of Himachal Pradesh have given a befitting reply to those hatching “conspiracies to topple the government.” “People of Himachal gave us 40 seats in 2022. People have given a befitting reply to the kind of poaching that happened in state politics in the past,” Mr Sukhu said.
“This also gave the message that the people of the state are aware and awake and that such poaching will not work. Three independent MLAs had no reason to resign. They could have simply allied with the BJP, but even they learned their lesson,” he added.
These bypolls were the first since the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which saw the BJP winning 240 seats – 32 short of the majority. The NDA, however, managed to cross the halfway mark of 272 with a total tally of 293 seats. The Congress-led INDIA bloc clinched 232 seats.
While the AAP won the seat in Punjab by a margin of over 23,000 votes, the TMC victory margins in West Bengal were over 62,000 votes in Maniktala, over 33.000 in Bagda, over 50,000 votes in Raiganj and over 39,000 votes in Ranaghat Dakshin.
In Himachal, while the Congress won the Dehra seat by a margin of over 9,000 votes and Nalagarh by over 8,000 votes, the BJP’s victory margin in Hamirpur was only 1,571 votes. Similarly in Amarwara seat in MP, the BJP just scraped through by about 3,000 after a day-long see-saw that saw change of fortunes between the BJP and the Congress candidates in every rounds of counting.
In Uttarakhand, however, the contest between the Congress and the BJP were much closer with the Congress retaining the Badrinath seat by a margin of over 5,000 votes and winning the Manglaur seat by only 422 votes. While the DMK won the Vikravandi seat in Tamil Nadu defeating the NDA nominee by a margin of over 67,000 votes, in Bihar the independent won against the JD(U) in the Rupauli seat by a margin of over 8,000 votes.
The Congress hailed its gains in the assembly bypolls in Himachal Pradesh and BJP-ruled Uttarakhand, saying the results “reflect the changing political climate in the country.” On the party’s victories in Uttarakhand, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, in a post on ‘X’, said, “Manglaur was wrested from the BSP and in the face of dirty tactics by the BJP. In Badrinath, the sitting MLA was a Congressman who had switched to the BJP during the Lok Sabha polls. He has been rightly punished by the people and the Congress has held on to the seat.” “Both ways the results reflect the changing political climate in the country,” he said.
The BJP, which won only one of the three seats in the Himachal Pradesh assembly bypolls on Saturday, said it accepts people’s mandate and would continue to fight for their welfare.
In a statement issued here, former chief minister and Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur said the party would look into the shortcomings which led to its defeat in the by-elections. “We accept the people’s mandate. Our fight for the welfare of the people of the state would continue from road to Vidhan Sabha,” he said.
“Congratulations to all for Aam Aadmi Party’s great victory in the Jalandhar West Vidhan Sabha constituency by-elections. The victory with a big lead shows that people across Punjab are very happy with the work of our government. We will make Jalandhar West the ‘best’ as promised during the bypoll. Congratulations to Mohinder Bhagat ji,” The Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann said in a post on X.
In West Bengal, reacting to the party’s performance in the bypolls, a state BJP leader said they would introspect. “We will introspect the party’s performance. But the TMC did not allow free and fair elections and there were a lot of irregularities. The ruling party had unleashed a reign of terror,” BJP state spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said.
The TMC was quick to counter, dubbing the allegation as baseless. “The people have rejected the BJP in the last Lok Sabha polls in Bengal and the same thing has happened in the bypolls. The allegation that by-polls were not free and fair are just excuses to hide their own failures,” TMC leader Kunal Ghosh said.
The bypoll results are a shot in the arm for the TMC just a month after the party’s performance in Lok Sabha polls when it had bagged 29 parliamentary seats, up from 22 in 2019. The results are a fresh disappointment for the BJP after its dismal performance in the parliamentary elections when its tally came down to 12 from 18 in 2019.
