1. INDIA bloc, backed by various opposition parties, won six assembly seats and led in four others during the bypolls across 13 constituencies.
2. The Congress, with 99 seats from the recent Lok Sabha elections, won two seats in Uttarakhand and secured the Dehra assembly seat in Himachal Pradesh.
3. BJP managed to secure only one seat in the bypolls held across seven states on July 13.
New Delhi, July 13: INDIA bloc, supported by various opposition parties, secured victories in six assembly seats and led in four others, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) managed to clinch only one seat during the bypolls held across 13 constituencies in seven states on Saturday, July 13.
The Congress, having won 99 seats in the recent Lok Sabha elections, emerged victorious in two seats in Uttarakhand and successfully secured the Dehra assembly seat in Himachal Pradesh, where Kamlesh Thakur, wife of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, contested.
Meanwhile, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), an ally of the INDIA bloc, celebrated a decisive win in Punjab’s Jalandhar West with candidate Mohinder Bhagat defeating BJP’s Sheetal Angural by a substantial margin of over 37,000 votes.
According to data from the Election Commission of India (ECI), the Trinamool Congress, under the leadership of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, claimed victory in three assembly seats including Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin, and led in Maniktala.
In Tamil Nadu, DMK leader Anniyur Siva maintained a lead in the Vikravandi assembly constituency.
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In Himachal Pradesh, Congress candidates Kamlesh Thakur and Hardeep Singh Bawa were leading in Dehra and Nalagarh respectively, while BJP’s Ashish Sharma held the lead in Hamirpur.
Elsewhere, independent candidate Shankar Singh led in Bihar’s Rupauli seat, with Janata Dal (United) candidate Kaladhar Mandal as the closest competitor. Former Janata Dal (United) member Bima Bharti, who switched to Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) earlier this year, faced defeat in her bid for the Purnia parliamentary seat during the Lok Sabha elections.
The BJP secured the Hamirpur seat in Himachal Pradesh and maintained a lead in Madhya Pradesh’s Amarwara constituency.
The bypolls serve as a crucial litmus test for the BJP, which fell short of a clear majority with 240 seats in the Lok Sabha elections, necessitating alliances within the NDA coalition to form a government. This contrasts with its independent victories of 303 and 282 seats in the 2019 and 2014 elections respectively.
With the support of key allies such as 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, the NDA coalition crossed the halfway mark needed for governance.