The by-elections to one Lok Sabha seat in West Bengal’s Asansol and four Assembly seats — Ballygunge in Bengal, Bochahan in Bihar, Khairagarh in Chhattisgarh and Kolhapur North in Maharashtra — came a disappointment to the BJP.
The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress clean swept the Asansol Lok Sabha and Ballygunge Assembly bypolls. While actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha defeated his closest rival — BJP’s Agnimitra Paul — by a record margin of over 3 lakh votes in Asansol, his party colleague babul Supriyo defeated BJP’s baby Kumari by a margin of 36,653 votes.
In Asansol, the by-elections were necessitated as Babul Supriyo resigned as the MP of Asansol after switching over to the TMC from the BJP, while state minister Subrata Mukherjee, who represented Ballygunge, died last year.
West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee thanked voters from the Asansol Lok Sabha seat and Ballygunge Assembly Constituency for giving a decisive mandate to TMC candidates in both the seats, where by-polls were held.
“I sincerely thank the electors of the Asansol Parliamentary Constituency and the Ballygunge Assembly Constituency for giving decisive mandate to AITC party candidates,” she tweeted. “We consider this to be our people’s warm Shubho Nababarsho gift to our Ma- Mati- Manush organization. Salute to the voters for reposing faith in us, yet again,” she added.
In Bihar, the opposition RJD wrested the Bochahan assembly seat from the ruling NDA, with its candidate defeating the BJP nominee by a large margin of over 35,000 votes.
RJD candidate Amar Paswan, whose father Musafir Paswan’s death had necessitated the by-election, polled 82,116 votes while his nearest BJP rival Baby Kumari got only 45,353. Expelled state minister Mukesh Sahani’s Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), on the ticket of which Musafir Paswan had won the seat in 2020, finished a distant third with 29,671 votes.
Sahani, who initially wanted to field the deceased MLA’s son Amar, recently lost his ministerial berth, and subsequently the trust of his prospective candidate. Amar jumped ship and is now in the fray as the candidate of the RJD, which his father had defeated to win the seat.
In a boost to the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) combine in Maharashtra, the Congress on Saturday won the bypoll to the Kolhapur North Assembly constituency, retaining the seat by defeating the BJP by a margin of over 18,000 votes.
Congress-MVA candidate Jayashri Jadhav bagged 96,176 votes, while BJP’s Satyajeet Kadam polled 77,426 votes. Jadhav emerged victorious by a margin of 18,750 votes, election officials said.
In Chhattisgarh’s Khairagarh Assembly seat too, Congress candidate Yashoda Verma was on her way to a comfortable victory as she maintained a lead of over 20,000 votes against her closest rival — BJP’s Komal Janghel. The bypoll here was necessitated after Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J) MLA and former MP Devvrat Singh died in November last year.