LUCKNOW: If Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh were the main acts Thursday, bypolls spread across five states made for captivating side-battles, especially in UP’s Mainpuri LS and Rampur and Khatauli assembly seats as well as Kurhani in Bihar.
SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple won Mainpuri by a margin of over 2.8 lakh votes, a feat even party patriarch and her father-in-law Mulayam Singh Yadav had never achieved in the constituency that had elected him every time since 2004.
BJP’s Raghuraj Singh Shakya stood no chance against the ‘MSY wave’, a sympathy factor spawned by the politician’s death on October 10. SP had turned the contest as a “tribute” to the party founder, a move that paid well.
But BJP handed a stunning defeat to SP in another of its bastions, Rampur, where the party had never lost since 2002. There were many firsts — it was BJP’s first win here and Rampur elected a non-Muslim legislator for the first time since the first assembly polls in 1952.
In a constituency that had voted Muslim candidates 19 times, BJP’s Akash Saxena defeated SP candidate Asim Raja, a protege of ex-SP MLA Azam Khan, by a margin of 34,136 votes. Azam had won the seat 10 times. His disqualification in a hate speech case forced the bypolls. Only eight months ago, Saxena was defeated by Azam by a margin of over 55,000 votes.
BJP adopted the strategy of consolidating Azam’s detractors and reaching out to Muslims who constitute around 65% of the electorate. But the Rampur bypolls were marred by an abysmally low turnout of 31% amid SP’s allegations that the BJP government misused state machinery to scare away voters. BJP denied the charges.
BJP failed in Khatauli, though. SP-backed RLD candidate Madan Bhaiyya won the seat, defeating BJP’s Raj Kumari Saini, wife of ex-MLA Vikram Saini whose disqualification on charges of his involvement in the Muzaffarnagar riots led to the bypolls. Madan Bhaiyya, a strongman from Ghaziabad, defeated Raj Kumari by a margin of 22,143 votes. BJP had been winning Khatauli since 2017.
In Bihar, BJP dealt a blow to the Nitish Kumar-led Mahagathbandhan governing the state by wresting the Kurhani assembly seat in Muzaffarpur. BJP’s Kedar Prasad Gupta defeated Manoj Singh Kushwaha of JD(U) by a margin of 3,649 votes.
In Odisha, CM Naveen Patnaik halted an upbeat BJP in the Padampur bypolls, considered a BJD stronghold. BJD’s Barsha Singh Bariha — daughter of five-time MLA Bijaya Ranjan Singh Bariha, whose death this October necessitated the bypolls — defeated BJP candidate Pradip Purohit by 42,000 votes.
Padampur was a prestige battle for BJD after it lost the Dhamnagar seat last month to BJP, which was seen as a sign of a slump in the long-time CM’s popularity.
Congress in Chhattisgarh retained the tribal Bhanupratappur (ST) assembly seat with its candidate Savitri Mandavi winning the seat by a margin of 21,000 votes. The victory adds another feather to CM Bhupesh Baghel’s cap, as the party has won all five assembly byelections held since Congress took over the reins of the state four years ago.
“(Ex-BJP CM) Raman Singh calls me muswa (mouse), bilai (cat), kukur (dog), but the real saffron is the people of Chhattisgarh and they have shown their mettle, that’s why BJP was seen struggling between second and third position in the counting,” Baghel said.
Congress also retained the Sardarshahar assembly seat in Rajasthan, with its candidate Anil Sharma defeating BJP’s Ashok Kumar Pincha by a margin of 26,800 votes. The byelection was considered a test for CM Ashok Gehlot a year ahead of state polls. “It’s a clear message from the people that in 2023, Congress will form the government with an absolute majority in Rajasthan,” he said.
