International Desk: The BJP-led alliance NDA suffered a big blow in the by-elections of 13 assembly constituencies in seven states of India, including four assemblies in West Bengal. Out of 13 seats, Congress, Trinamool, AAP, DMK, and ‘India’ partners won a total of 10. The BJP won only two. And an independent candidate won one seat in Bihar.
The BJP lost three seats in West Bengal by-elections. Trinamool won Raiganj, Ranaghat South, Bagda, and Manikatla by-elections. But in the 2021 elections, they were in possession of the BJP. The BJP won Hamirpur in Himachal out of nine seats in six other states. Congress candidate and state chief minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu’s wife, Kamlesh, won in Dehra. The Congress also won in Nalagarh.
Two seats in Uttarakhand, Badrinath and Mangalore, are also held by the Mallikarjun Kharge-Rahul Gandhi party. After losing in Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya and Allahabad (now Prayagraj) in the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP is also strong in Uttarakhand’s pilgrimage site, Badrinath. The Aam Aadmi Party (UP) won Jalandhar West Assembly in Punjab and the DMK in Vikrabandhi in Tamil Nadu. The BJP won in Amarwada, in Madhya Pradesh.
Incidentally, three independent MLAs from Himachal Pradesh’s Dehra, Hamirpur, and Nalagarh resigned under the Representation of the People Amendment Act before joining the BJP. So there was a vote. There were re-polls as JDU MLA Bima Devi from Rupauli in Bihar joined the RJD and Congress MLA from Amarwada in Madhya Pradesh. Kamlesh Pratap Shah joined the BJP. The Congress MLA from Uttarakhand’s Badrinath, Rajendra Singh Bhandari, resigned and joined the BJP in the by-election. By-elections were held due to the death of a BSP MLA in Mangalore in that state. The bypolls were held last Wednesday following the death of a DMK MLA in Tamil Nadu’s Vikrabandi and the joining of the BJP by AAP MLA Sheetal Angural Rinku from Jalandhar West in Punjab.
