Bypolls: Early Diwali for BJP

Bypolls: Early Diwali for BJP

Clean sweep in Gujarat, bags all 8 seats; comfortable victory in other states

AgenciesUpdated: Wednesday, November 11, 2020, 01:17 AM IST
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Ahmedabad / Imphal / Ranchi / New Delhi

The BJP on Tuesday was set to sweep the assembly bypolls held last week with leads and wins in 40 of 59 seats across 11 states, including Madhya Pradesh where it cemented its rule by winning 16 seats and was poised to add three more.

Votes were counted for by-elections in Manipur (5 seats), Haryana (1), Chhattisgarh (1), Jharkhand (2), Karnataka (2), Nagaland (2), Odisha (2) and Telangana (1).

The ruling BJP won all the 8 assembly seats in Gujarat, dealing a blow to the Congress which had bagged these constituencies in 2017.

The BJP’s tally in the 182-member Assembly has now reached 111. The Congress, disappointed by the results, said they had expected voters will teach a lesson to party MLAs who resigned and swi­t­ched sides. 8 Congress MLAs had resigned before the Rajya Sabha polls in Guj­arat, and 5 of them, who were given tickets by the BJP, their new party, won on Tuesday.

BJP wins 2 seats, Ind 1 in Manipur; NDPP 1, Ind 1 in Nagaland

Ruling BJP candidates won 2 Assembly seats in Manipur bypolls and the party was leading in another seat, while an Independent candidate won the fourth seat in the state. BJP’s ally and ruling Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) bagged 1 Assembly seat in Nagaland, while an Independent candidate succeeded in winning the second seat, officials said.

In Imphal BJP candidate Oinam Lukhoi Singh bagged 10,960 votes to win the Wangoi bypolls, defeating his nearest rival Khuraijam Loken Singh of the National People's Party (NPP) by 257 votes. The Wangoi seat witnessed a triangular contest among the BJP, the NPP and the Congress nominees. The NPP is an ally of the BJP-led government in Manipur.

Shock for TRS as BJP wrests Dubbak in Telangana

In a major setback to Telangana's ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the opposition BJP wrested the Dubbak Assembly seat by a margin of over 1,000 votes.

In a nail-biting finish, BJP’s M Raghunandan Rao beat his nearest rival S Sujatha of TRS by 1,079 votes in the stronghold of the ruling party and the home district of CM K Chandrasekhar Rao.

Though the celebrations in the BJP camp began soon after the completion of the 23rd and last round of counting, the EC delayed the result as votes in 4 EVMs could not be counted due to technical glitch. The authorities counted VVPATs of the EVMs in the 24th round. However, the counting in this round did not have any impact on the outcome.

BJP polled 63,352 votes while the TRS secured 62,273 votes. The Congress' Cheruku Srinivas Reddy finished third with 22,196 votes.

J’khand: JMM, Cong retain seats with reduced margin

The JMM-led ruling coalition of Jharkhand retained Dumka and Bermo assembly seats in byelections defeating the BJP, albeit with drastically reduced margins from that of the 2019 state polls.

JMM candidate Basant Soren, the younger brother of CM Hemant Soren, defeated his nearest BJP rival Lois Marandi, a former minister, by 6,842 votes, in Dumka seat, the EC said on Tuesday. The winning margin of the JMM reduced almost by half compared to what it was in last year's assembly election.

In Bermo constituency, Kumar Jayamangal alias Anup Singh of the Congress defeated Yogeshwar Mahto "Batul", his nearest BJP rival, by a margin of 14,225 votes.

Odisha: BJD leads in both assembly seats

Ruling BJD candidates widened their leads in both the assembly seats, where counting of votes polled in the November 3 byelections is underway on Tuesday, EC officials said. BJD’s Bijaya Shankar Das was leading over BJP candidate Rajkishore Behera by 27,665 votes in Tirtol seat in Jagatsinghpur district. In Balasore, BJD nominee Swarup Kumar Das was leading over his nearest BJP rival Manas Kumar Dutta by 7,364 votes.

Baroda: Cong’s Indu Raj Narwal defeats BJP’s Yogeshwar Dutt

The opposition Congress retained the Baroda assembly seat in Haryana as Indu Raj Narwal defeated BJP nominee and Olympian wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt by a margin of 10,566 votes. This is the second time Dutt has lost. Officials said Narwal was polled 60,636 votes against Dutt's 50,070. INLD’s Joginder Singh Malik polled 5,003 votes while Loktantra Suarkasha Party’s Raj Kumar Saini got 5,601 votes.

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