India's BJP Scores Big in By-elections for Three Parliamentary, Seven State Assembly Seats

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has secured a big victory in the by-elections held in India for three parliamentary seats and seven state assembly seats; of the three parliamentary seats in contention, the BJP won two parliamentary seats in Uttar Pradesh; and of the seven assembly seats being fought over, it bagged three out of the four state assembly seats in Tripura.

However, the party was defeated in the poll for a state assembly seat in Delhi.

The Rampur seats in Uttar Pradesh were won by the BJP’s Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi - who beat the Samajwadi Party’s Mohd Asim Raja with a margin of 42,000 votes - and Dinesh Lal Yadav, known as Nirahua, who vanquished Dharmendra Yadav by 8,679 votes.

The Uttar Pradesh results were a hammer blow to the Samajwadi Party, as both the parliamentary seats the BJP secured had been considered to be the party's "safe seats".

The by-election for Uttar Pradesh's Azamgarh seat was announced after former state chief Akhilesh Yadav vacated it to stand in state assembly elections, and the Samajwadi Party’s Azam Khan vacated the Rampur seat.

In Punjab, Shiromani Akali Dal's (Amritsar) candidate Simranjit Singh Mann won the Sangrur parliamentary seat by defeating Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Gurmail Singh.

This was the first test for the AAP after it recorded a historic win in the Punjab state assembly polls earlier this year. The by-elections were announced after state chief Bhagwant Mann quit the seat after he had been elected as a legislator.

The by-elections took place in seven assembly seats in Tripura (4 seats), Andhra Pradesh (1 seat), Delhi (1 seat) and Jharkhand (1 seat).

BJP won three of the four state assembly seats in Tripura and Congress won the remaining seat.

Tripura state chief and BJP candidate Manik Saha won the Town Bardowali constituency and his party mate, Malina Debnath won the Jubarajnagar constituency. Swapna Das won the Surma constituency. But Congress’ Sudip Roy Barman won in Agartala constituency.

In Delhi, AAP candidate Durgesh Pathak won the Rajinder Nagar seat by defeating BJP’s Rajesh Bhatia.

In Andhra Pradesh, YSRCP candidate Mekapati Vikram Reddy won Atmakur seat and Congress’ Shilpi Neha Tirkey won Mandar seat in Jharkhand.