Bypoll Results: INDIA Wins 2 Seats, Leads in 9; NDA Ahead in 2
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West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee interacts with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during Opposition parties meet.
In a boost for the Opposition, the INDIA bloc won at least two seats and was leading in nine, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was ahead in only two as votes were counted for the bypolls in 13 assembly seats across seven states on Saturday, July 13.
Among the 13 assembly seats, the Congress, which won 99 seats in the recent Lok Sabha elections, was leading in two seats in Uttarakhand and one seat each in Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
The party won the Dehra assembly seat in Himachal Pradesh, where it had fielded Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s wife, Kamlesh Thakur.
Meanwhile, the INDIA bloc’s partner, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), won the Jalandhar West seat in Punjab. Their candidate, Mohinder Bhagat, defeated BJP’s Sheetal Angural by over 37,000 votes.
According to the Election Commission of India (ECI), the Trinamool Congress, led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, is leading in four assembly seats in West Bengal: Maniktala, Bagdah, Ranaghat Dakshin, and Raiganj. The bypolls for these seats were held on July 10. In Tamil Nadu, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader Anniyur Siva is leading in the Vikravandi assembly constituency.
In Himachal Pradesh, Congress candidates Kamlesh Thakur, the wife of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, and Hardeep Singh Bawa are leading in Dehra and Nalagarh, respectively. Meanwhile, BJP’s Ashish Sharma is ahead in Hamirpur.
Kamlesh Thakur was leading by 7,860 votes against BJP’s Hoshiyar Singh in Dehra. In Hamirpur, Congress’ Pushpinder Verma was trailing by 1,545 votes against BJP’s Ashish Sharma, while in Nalagarh, Congress’ Hardeep Singh Bawa was leading by 4,137 votes against BJP’s K L Thakur, according to the website.
BJP’s ally, Janata Dal (United), was leading in the Rupauli seat in Bihar.
The Rupauli seat was previously held by Bima Bharti, who left Janata Dal (United) and joined Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in March to contest the Lok Sabha election from Purnia. She was defeated by independent candidate Rajesh Ranjan.
These bypolls are a significant test for the BJP, which won 240 seats in the recent elections, falling short of the 272 majority mark and needing support from allies in the NDA coalition to form a government. This is a notable change from their 303 and 282-seat victories in 2019 and 2014, where they secured a majority on their own.
With support from key allies like N Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Nitish Kumar’s JD(U), which secured 16 and 12 seats in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar respectively, along with other coalition partners, the NDA surpassed the halfway mark.
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