As results started to pour in on Tuesday (10 November), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ally won 41 out of the 59 seats that went to bypolls in eleven states, reports Times of India.
As per election data, 31 of the seats that BJP won were at the expense of Congress as the Modi led BJP got around 26 of these 31 seats in just two states – Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.
The Gujarat bypolls was a total washout as the BJP defeated Congress in all eight seats. In Madhya Pradesh it got worse for the Congress as the BJP won 18 of the 19 seats that were previously held by it.
With these wins in Gujarat and MP, the BJP has consolidated its power even more. In MP, the BJP’s strength in the 229-member State Assembly has risen to 126.
In the northeastern state of Manipur, BJP won four of the five seats held by the Congress party and the fifth seat was won by an independent leaving Congress with nothing. In In Nagaland, BJP won one of the two seats and the other seat was won by the BJP ally NDPP and one more went to an independent.
In UP, were assembly elections are due in 2022, the BJP won seven seats and regained six of the six seats earlier held by it. The bypolls was seen as a referendum by the opposition party led by Samajwadi Party suprimo, Akhilesh Yadav.
In Karnataka assembly bypolls, BJP won two seats, that has consolidated the position of the CM BS Yediyurappa.
However, the best news came from the unlikely state of Telangana state bypolls for BJP, were the party candidate M Raghunandan Rao defeated ruling TRS’ Solipeta Sujatha by 1,079 votes in the Dubbaka byelection.