New Delhi, 13-07-2024 : The recent bypoll results have proven to be a significant boost for the opposition INDIA bloc, with opposition parties emerging victorious or leading in 10 out of the 13 assembly seats that went to the polls on July 10. The BJP, which contested 12 seats, managed to secure only two victories. The Congress and the Trinamool Congress each won or were leading in four seats, while the DMK and AAP secured one seat each. These results come as a major morale booster for the opposition parties, invigorating them post-Lok Sabha elections. These bypolls, spread across seven states, were the first electoral test following the Lok Sabha elections.
In Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the Congress made notable gains, winning two seats in each state. Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu’s wife, Kamlesh, triumphed in the Dehra seat, while Hardeep Singh Bawa won in Nalagarh. The BJP’s lone victory in Himachal Pradesh came from the Hamirpur seat, where Ashish Sharma, previously an independent winner, secured a win. Former Union Minister and MP Anurag Thakur had extensively campaigned in Hamirpur to ensure Sharma’s victory, as the seat falls within his Lok Sabha constituency.
The BJP’s second victory was in Madhya Pradesh’s Amarwara, where Congress defector Kamlesh Pratap Shah, running on the BJP ticket, defeated the Congress candidate by over 3,000 votes. These results, along with earlier bypolls held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha elections, have strengthened Sukhu’s position in Himachal Pradesh, stabilizing his government amid internal rebellions from some of his MLAs.
In Uttarakhand, the BJP faced a significant setback with the loss of the Badrinath seat to Congress’s Lakpat Singh Butola, who defeated BJP’s Rajendra Singh Bhandari, a former Congress MLA who had switched sides. This defeat, especially in a constituency known for its religious significance, adds to the BJP’s embarrassment, echoing their earlier loss of the Faizabad Lok Sabha seat, which includes Ayodhya in neighboring Uttar Pradesh.
The opposition will likely leverage these results to argue that the BJP’s Hindutva agenda has limited appeal, even in religious strongholds central to their politics. In Uttarakhand, Congress was also leading in the Manglaur seat with Qazi Mohd Nizaamuddin narrowly ahead of BJP’s Kartar Singh Bhadana. This seat, traditionally held by Muslim candidates, saw the BJP attempting to polarize voters by fielding an OBC candidate. State Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami had heavily campaigned for both BJP candidates.
Bihar also saw the ruling party candidates being shunned by the electorate, with an Independent candidate winning from the Rupauli seat, defeating both JD(U) and RJD candidates.
In Punjab, the AAP candidate won the bypoll, necessitated by the defection of sitting AAP MLA Sheetal Angural to the BJP. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann had made this bypoll a prestige battle, even renting a house in the constituency during the campaign. The AAP had previously lost the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat in the 2024 elections, so Mann was keen on securing a victory in this Dalit-dominated region. Angural lost by over 37,000 votes.
In Tamil Nadu, the ruling DMK’s candidate, Anniyur Siva, was leading over the nearest PMK candidate by over 67,000 votes.
These results are expected to resonate in the upcoming parliament session, where opposition parties will likely remind the ruling BJP of its inability to secure victories even in the bypolls.