INDIA bloc has won four seats and the BJP won three seats in by-elections, the results of which were announced last week. A Tripura double-win fortified BJP’s majority in the north-eastern state achieved in this February’s assembly polls. In Uttarakhand, it retained the Bagheshwar seat as the hill state’s governing party.
For the INDIA alliance, Kerala’s late CM Oommen Chandy’s son retained his father’s fortress, Puthuppally, for Congress. A Trinamool triumph in Bengal’s Dhupguri, a Samajwadi victory in UP’s Ghosi and JMM’s retention of Jharkhand’s Dumri completed INDIA’S march. The by-polls were held on September 5, mostly necessitated by the deaths or resignations of previous lawmakers.
In Tripura, the governing BJP snatched Boxanagar from CPM and retained Dhanpur, increasing its tally in the 60-member house to 33. Its ally, IPFT, has one MLA. The wins in both Muslim-dominated constituencies, bordering Bangladesh, was seen as a wider message about minorities standing with the saffron party.
Boxanagar had been a stronghold of CPM, barring three elections when Congress won in 1972, 1988 and 1998. Former CM Manik Sarkar of the CPM was able to win Dhanpur in 2018 even during a high anti-incumbency wave that first brought BJP to office in the state. The saffron party won the seat in the polls held earlier this year.
In Uttarakhand, BJP retained Bageshwar but did so by a slender margin as Parvati Das defeated her Congress rival Basant Kumar by only 2,405 votes in spite of intensive campaigns by the governing party. In the 2022 polls, BJP had won the seat by over 12,000 votes. Parvati is the wife of late former minister Chandan Ram Das .In Kerala’s Puthuppally, Congress’s Chandy Oommen won by 37,719 votes, surpassing his late father’s 2011 record margin of 33,255 in his 53 year s as MLA. Runner-up and governing Left candidate Jaick C Thomas could rustle up only 42,425 votes against Chandy Oommen’s 80,144. BJP finished third, getting 6,558 votes.
Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee had much to smile about in Dhupguri as her Trinamool wrested the seat from BJP in a breathtaking roller-coaster of fortunes. Trinamool’s Nirmal Chandra Roy defeated BJP’s Tapasi Roy by 4,309 votes. The Dhupguri victory signals TMC’s deepening influence in BJP-dominated pockets of north Bengal.
In Uttar P radesh, the opposition Samajwadi Party retained Ghosi against the run of play in which the governing BJP has been notching up poll triumphs since CM Yogi Adityanath returned to office in March 2022 with a resounding majority.
In Ghosi, SP’s Sudhakar Singh defeated turncoat BJP nominee Dara Singh Chauhan by nearly 43,000 votes in a highvoltage bipolar contest. Congress, RLD and the Left did not contest and backed the SP candidate. BSP stayed out, too.