Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, June 23: Giving a shock to the ruling BJP, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) retained the Visavadar seat in a bypoll to the state Assembly in the BJP’s citadel of Gujarat, the home state of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the union home minister Amit Shah, where the saffron party is ruling supreme for the last three decades.
The results of the bypolls held on June 19 in five seats across four states – including two seats in Gujarat, and one seat each in Punjab, Kerala and West Bengal – were announced on Monday with the AAP winning two seats, one each in Gujarat and Punjab, the BJP winning one seat in Gujarat, the Congress-led UDF the lone seat in Kerala and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) taking the lone seat in West Bengal.
After the Congress lost both the bypolls in Gujarat, the state Congress president Shaktisinh Gohil resigned from his post accepting the moral responsibility for the party’s continued poor showing in the state where for the first time the AAP would register its presence in the state Assembly.
A nine-year-old girl was killed in a bomb explosion in Kaliganj in West Bengal’s Nadia district on Monday when the counting of votes for the bypoll was on, police said. According to a police officer the girl was wounded after being allegedly hit by a bomb that exploded on Monday afternoon at Barochandgar under Kaliganj police station limits.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said police will take strict legal action against the culprits. “I am shocked and deeply saddened at the death of a young girl in an explosion at Barochandgar. My prayers and thoughts are with the family in their hour of grief,” Banerjee posted on X. “Police shall take strong and decisive legal action against the culprits at the earliest,” she added. “The girl’s body has been sent for post-mortem. We are probing into the cause of the explosion,” the police officer said.
Former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday said he would not go to the Rajya Sabha, after the party’s sitting Upper House member Sanjeev Arora won the Ludhiana West bypolls in Punjab. Mr Arora will have to resign from the Rajya Sabha.
At a press conference, Mr Kejriwal was asked whom the party will nominate in Arora’s place. “Many times I have been sent to the Rajya Sabha. I want to tell you I am not going to the Rajya Sabha. The political affairs committee of the party will decide whom to nominate,” he told reporters. Opposition parties have claimed that party supremo Kejriwal would enter the Upper House in Arora’s place.
On June 19, the bypolls were held in Kerala’s Nilambur seat, Gujarat’s Visavadar and Kadi seats, Punjab’s Ludhiana West, and West Bengal’s Kaliganj. A fierce contest was seen between the BJP, Congress, Aam Aadmi Party, and Pinarayi Vijayan’s Left Democratic Front (LDF).
The AAP’s Gopal Italia won the Visavadar seat with a margin of 17,554 votes, while BJP’s Rajendra Chavda won the Kadi seat with a margin of 39,452 votes. The Visavadar seat in Junagadh district has been vacant since December 2023, when AAP MLA Bhupendra Bhayani resigned and joined the BJP, soon after the state Assembly elections.
TMC’s Alifa Ahmed, the daughter of Nasiruddin Ahmed whose death in February caused the bypoll, won the Kaliganj seat by a margin of 49,755 votes. AAP’s Sanjeev Arora won in Ludhiana by 10,637 votes and Congress-Led UDF candidate Aryadan Shoukath by over 11,000 votes against CPIM’s M Swaraj in Nilambur.
The Ludhiana West Assembly seat fell vacant due to the demise of AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi in January. The byelection for the Nilambur Assembly seat was conducted after Anvar resigned as MLA following several tiffs with the CPI(M)-led LDF over certain allegations from Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan and his close aides. The Kadi seat in Mehsana district fell vacant on February 4 after the death of BJP MLA Karsan Solanki.
In Kerala the Congress-led UDF has won back a seat it held, thanks to Aryadan Mohd, from 1987 to 2011. Aryadan Shoukath – a popular film producer and, crucially, the former party veteran’s son – defeated the Communist Party of India (Marxist) candidate M Swaraj by over 11,000 votes.
The Nilambur seat had been won by independent lawmaker PV Anvar in 2016 and 2021, but he stepped down in January after his new party, the Democratic Movement of Kerala, merged with the Trinamool Congress. Mr Anvar is now the Trinamool’s Kerala unit boss. The win is a shot-in-the-arm for the Congress before next year’s full election, particularly because it is in the Wayanad parliamentary constituency that is held by Priyanka Gandhi. Similarly, victory for the Trinamool in Kaliganj will be a boost before a high-stakes showdown with the BJP, also in 2026.
