By-election results for 13 Assembly seats across seven states, including key areas in Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Punjab, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Himachal Pradesh, are being declared today.
The opposition INDIA bloc has delivered a significant blow to the ruling BJP, winning six out of the 13 contested seats and leading in five others. This comes after the BJP’s underwhelming performance in last month’s Lok Sabha elections, where they failed to secure a majority. The BJP managed to win only one seat in these by-elections.
In West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress dominated, winning all four seats in a landslide. Himachal Pradesh saw Congress taking two of the three available seats, with Kamlesh Thakur, wife of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Sukhu, defeating her BJP rival in Dehra. In Punjab, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) secured a win in the Jalandhar West constituency.
- Punjab’s Jalandhar West: AAP’s Mohinder Bhagat won by 37,000 votes against Congress nominee Surinder Kaur. The by-election followed AAP legislator Sheetal Angural’s defection to the BJP.
- Himachal Pradesh: Congress showed strong performance in all three seats. Kamlesh Thakur won in Dehra by 9,399 votes, while Hardeep Singh Bawa secured Nalagarh. BJP’s Ashish Sharma narrowly won Hamirpur.
- West Bengal: Trinamool Congress’s Madhupurna Thakur, Mukut Mani Adhikari, and Krishna Kalyani won in Bagda, Ranaghat, and Raiganj, respectively. Another Trinamool candidate was leading in Maniktala.
- Uttarakhand: Congress candidate Qazi Nizamuddin led in Manglaur, with Lakhpat Singh Butola ahead in Badrinath.
- Tamil Nadu: DMK’s Anniyur Siva was leading in Vikravandi.
- Bihar: JD(U)’s Kaladhar Prasad Mandal trailed behind independent Shankar Singh in Rupauli.
- Madhya Pradesh: BJP’s Kamlesh Pratap Shah led in Amarwara.
These by-elections, held on July 10, marked the first significant political contest since the Lok Sabha polls, setting the stage for upcoming political battles.
