The BJP lost the politically significant Lok Sabha seat at Kairana and the Noorpoor Assembly seats of Uttar Pradesh in the byelections that were held on Monday. The Rashtriya Lok Dal won the Kairana seat.
Counting started on Thursday for byelections in four Lok Sabha and ten Assembly seats. The Lok Sabha seats are Palghar and Bhandara-Gondiya in Maharashtra, Kairana in Uttar Pradesh and Nagaland’s only Parliamentary constituency.
The Assembly seats are Noorpur (Uttar Pradesh) Jokihat (Bihar), Tharali (Uttarakhand), Gomia and Silli in Jharkhand, Maheshtala in West Bengal, Ampati in Meghalaya, Palus Kadegaon in Maharashtra, Shahkot in Punjab and Chengannur in Kerala.
Kairana is significant especially in the context of the Opposition show of unity to take on the BJP ahead of the crucial Lok Sabha polls of 2019. Begum Tabassum Hasan, the candidate representing the opposition in Kairana, was backed by the Congress, Samajwadi Party and Mayawati’s BSP. Hasan was fighting against the BJP’s Mriganka Singh.
Signifantly too, the NCP won the Bhadara-Gondiya seat in Maharashtra. In Bihar, the Rashtriya Janata Dal won in the Jokihat assembly seat in Bihar’s Araria. Chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) had won the seat three consecutive times before, and this is all the more significant on that count. In Kerala, the CPI(M) won the Chengannur seat, its Left Democratic Front candidate defeated the United Democratic Front candidate led by the Congress. Significantly, the BJP finished third here, its votes declining. In West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress is leading in the Maheshtala seat.