Assembly bypoll results tilt towards INDIA bloc

New Delhi: In a boost to the INDIA bloc, its constituents won 10 of the 13 assembly seats where by-elections were held in seven states, while theBJPmanaged to bag two and an Independent pocketed one seat as votes were counted on Saturday. The Congress won four seats - two in BJP-ruled Uttarakhand and two in Himachal Pradesh. The TMC bagged all the four seats in West Bengal while the AAP won the Jalandhar West seat in Punjab and the DMK emerged victorious in the Vikravandi constituency in Tamil Nadu. The BJP won the Hamirpur seat in Himachal Pradesh while Independent candidate Shankar Singh clinched the Rupauli seat in Bihar.

Voting was held in these seats on July 10. The Congress hailed the results, saying they "reflect the changing political climate in the country" and it has now become clear that the web of "fear and illusion woven by the BJP has been broken". West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee thanked the people and said the party will dedicate the by-election and the Lok Sabha poll victories to the "martyrs" on its July 21 Martyrs' Day rally.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin referred to the INDIA bloc's good show and said BJP should learn lessons from its defeats. "BJP must realise that without respecting regional sentiments it cannot run the government and the party," he said. He described his party's victory as people's "thanksgiving" to DMK regime's welfare schemes.

Hailing the victory in Madhya Pradesh, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav said the people have reposed their faith in the BJP government's "guarantee of trust".

In Uttarakhand, Congress's Qazi Mohammad Nizamuddin won the Manglaur seat for the fourth time edging out BJP's Kartar Singh Bhadana by a narrow margin of 422 votes. Nizamuddin won the seat twice on a BSP ticket and once on a Congress ticket in the past. In Badrinath, Congress's Lakhapat Butola, a first-time contestant, scored an upset victory over former minister and MLA Rajendra Bhandari of the BJP whose resignation as a legislator just before the Lok Sabha polls had necessitated the bypoll. Butola's victory margin was 5,224 votes. Congress candidate Kamlesh Thakur, wife of Himachal Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, defeated BJP's Hoshiyar Singh to win the Dehra seat by a margin of 9,399 votes. Hardeep Singh Bawa also defeated his nearest rival and BJP candidate K L Thakur in Nalagarh by 8,990 votes. Bawa is a five-time Indian National Trade Union Congress president. BJP's Ashish Sharma, however, managed to win the Hamirpur seat defeating Congress candidate Pushpinder Verma.

The Congress's strength in the 68-member assembly had dropped from 40 to 34 after six of its MLAs joined the BJP. It has now regained the tally it secured in the assembly elections in 2022, after winning four seats in bypolls -- held along with the Lok Sabha elections in June -- and two more it won on Saturday.