Blog

Bylections to 25 assembly seats in 12 states delivered a set of results Tuesday that didn’t hold too many surprises, unlike the Lok Sabha verdict. Congress won four of six in Himachal Pradesh to strengthen CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s hand after a period of uncertainty sparked by a revolt in his ranks, while BJP swept all five seats at stake in Gujarat with a motley crew of four Congress turncoats and a former Independent MLA.
Congress’s expelled Himachal MLAs Rajinder Singh Rana, Chaitanya Sharma, Devender Kumar Bhutoo and Ravi Thakur — all of whom were fielded by BJP — lost in Sujanpur, Gagret, Kutlehar and Lahaul-Spiti, respectively. Two other Congress rebels, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal in Barsar and Sudhir Sharma in Dharamshala, won as BJP nominees.
The winning Congress candidates that took the party’s strength to 38 in the 68-member assembly are Anuradha Rana in Lahaul-Spiti, Ranjit Singh in Sujanpur, Rakesh Kalia in Gagret and Vivek Sharma in Kutlehar.
In Jharkhand’s Gandey, jailed ex-CM Hemant Soren’s wife Kalpana Murmu Soren made a winning debut, coinciding with her sister-in-law and BJP candidate Sita Soren trailing in the race for the Dumka (ST) LS seat.

Uttar Pradesh, where byelections were held in four constituencies, saw BJP and SP share the spoils. BJP’s Arvind Kumar Singh and OP Srivastava won Dadraul and Lucknow East, respectively, while Rakesh Kumar Yadav of SP triumphed in Gainsari and his party colleague Vijay Singh in Duddhi.
In Gujarat, BJP replicated its Lok Sabha poll sweep in the five-seat bypoll battle to raise its numbers in the 182-strong assembly to 161.
Ex-state Congress president Arjun Modhwadia led the winners’ list, trouncing Raju Odedara of his former party by 1.16 lakh votes in Porbandar. CJ Chavda, another of those who quit Congress and joined BJP earlier this year, retained the Vijapur seat. Arvind Ladani in Manavadar, Chirag Patel in Khambhat and Dharmendrasinh Vaghela in Vaghodia completed the victory parade, all at the expense of Congress rivals.
The Visavadar assembly seat in Saurashtra remains vacant because of a legal dispute.
TMC’s day of gains continued as Reyat Hossain Sarkar won the Bhagabangola seat and actor-politician Sayantika Banerjee was on course to defeat BJP’s Sajal Ghosh in north Kolkata’s Baranagar.
Haryana saw BJP’s Nayab Singh win the Karnal seat. BJP also won the byelection to Ramnagar in Tripura, with BJP candidate and Agartala Municipal Corporation mayor Dipak Majumder defeating CPM’s Ratan Das to maintain his party’s strength in the assembly.
Bihar’s Agiaon seat went to CPI (M-L) Liberation’s Shiv Prakash Ranjan, who defeated Prabhunath Prasad of JD(U). In Karnataka’s lone assembly bypoll, Congress’s Raja Venugopal Naik won the Shorapur seat in a close contest against BJP’s Narasimha Nayak. Bharat Adivasi Party gained a seat in Rajasthan, with Jaikrishn Patel defeating Subhash Tamboliya of BJP in Bagidora.
Tharahai Cuthbert of Congress won Vilavancode in Tamil Nadu.