Lucknow: INDIA 4, BJP 3 in bypolls

Lucknow/Agartala : The by-election results for seven assembly seats in six states declared on Friday were a mixed bag for the BJP and the opposition INDIA bloc, with the saffron party winning three seats and one each going to its rivals Congress, JMM and TMC and Samajwadi Party.

The opposition alliance tasted victory in the Ghosi assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh, where it backed the Samajwadi Party, and in Jharkhand, where the JMM retained the Dumri assembly seat. The BJP maintained its hold on the Bageshwar assembly seat in Uttarakhand and Dhanpur in Tripura and wrested the Boxanagar assembly seat from CPI(M) in the northeastern state, where the INDIA alliance parties had joined hands, but lost the Dhupguri assembly seat in West Bengal to the Trinamool Congress (TMC).

The Congress said the victory of opposition INDIA candidates proves that the people have accepted the bloc as an alternative to the BJP. However, BJP leaders hailed the party's victory in Tripura and Uttarakhand. The bypolls were the first electoral test for the INDIA alliance of 28 parties formed recently to take on the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls next year.

Of the seven seats where the by-election was held on September 5, three were earlier held by the BJP, and one each was with the Congress, SP, CPI(M) and JMM. The opposition Congress-led UDF in Kerala retained the Puthuppally Assembly constituency in Kerala as its candidate Chandy Oommen, son of late Congress stalwart Oommen Chandy, trounced ruling LDF candidate Jaick C Thomas. While Oommen gathered 80,144 votes,

In Ghosi, Samajwadi Party candidate Sudhakar Singh defeated BJP's Dara Singh Chauhan, who had won the seat in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls on the Samajwadi Party ticket but returned to the BJP recently.