Bypoll results a shot in the arm for opposition INDIA bloc

Opposition parties have won or are leading in 10 out of 13 seats

TMC supporters celebrate after party candidate Madhuparna Thakur won Bagda Assembly by-election in North 24 Parganas | PTI

Pratul Sharma, The Week, July 13, 2024 : The Opposition parties have won or were leading in 10 out of the 13 assembly seats which went for bypolls on July 10. The BJP which contested 12 seats could manage to win only two. The Congress and the Trinamool Congress have won or were leading in four seats each, while the DMK and the AAP in one each. This has come as a big morale booster for the Opposition parties which have returned energised after the Lok Sabha polls. These were the first elections, spread over seven states, to be held after the Lok Sabha polls. 

The big wins for the Congress came from hilly states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand where the party won two seats each. Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu’s wife, Kamlesh won from Dehra seat, while Hardeep Singh Bawa from Nalagarh. BJP won the Hamirpur seat as its candidate Ashish Sharma won here. Sharma had won the last elections as an independent here. Former Union minister and MP Anurag Thakur had camped here for days to get Sharma elected as the assembly seat fell in his Lok Sabha constituency.

The second seat won by the BJP was from Amarwara in Madhya Pradesh, where the Congress turncoat MLA, Kamlesh Pratap Shah, won it on the BJP symbol. He won the poll, defeating the Congress candidate by over 3,000 votes.

With these poll results, coupled with the bypolls held along with the Lok Sabha elections, Sukhu’s position has become stronger and his government safe as he had faced rebellion after several of his MLAs had turned against him and resigned.

The BJP’s loss from Badrinath seat in Uttarakhand may have come as a big disappointment for the ruling party. Here Congress’s Lakpat Singh Butola won the polls defeating BJP’s Rajendra Singh Bhandari, who was earlier a Congress MLA but switched side and resigned from the seat. The fact that the turncoat and former MLA could not win from the seat, which is known for its eponymous temple, one of the jyortirlings in the country, would be embarrassing for the BJP. The ruling party had lost the Faizabad Lok Sabha seat which includes Ayodhya, in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, causing consternation in the party. 

The Opposition parties will remind the BJP that its Hindutva agenda has limited appeal in the very religious centres which are central to its politics. 

The Congress was leading in the Manglaur seat where its candidate, Qazi Mohd Nizaamuddin was narrowly leading over BJP’s Kartar Singh Bhadana. The seat had gone to bypoll after the death of the BSP MLA. The minority dominated seat had always elected a Muslim candidate. The BJP had fielded an OBC candidate, aiming for polarisation. State CM Pushkar Singh Dhami had campaigned extensively for both party candidates.

Uttarakhand is not the only state where electorate shunned the ruling party candidates. In Bihar, an Independent won from the Rupauli seat defeating the JD(U) and RJD candidates.  

In other states, the ruling parties and the chief ministers heaved a sigh of relief with the results. In West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress won three seats, defeating the BJP candidates and was leading on one. It comes as a shot in the arm for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee whose party won most of the seats in the Lok Sabha.

In Himachal Pradesh, Sukhu has emerged stronger with a string of victories in the bypolls. In neighbouring Punjab, the AAP candidate won the polls. The bypoll was necessitated as sitting AAP MLA Sheetal Angural switched sides to join the BJP. Punjab CM Bhagwant Singh Mann had made the bypolls his prestige battle as he had even rented a house here during the campaign. The AAP had lost the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat in the 2024 elections. So, Mann desperately wanted a victory in the region dominated by dalits. Angural lost the polls by over 37,000 votes.

In Tamil Nadu, the ruling DMK candidate, Anniyur Siva was leading over the nearest PMK candidate by over 67,000 votes.

The results are likely to resonate in the upcoming parliament session as the Opposition parties will remind the ruling BJP that it could not win even in the by-polls.