By-election results: Cong wins 3, BJP and ally 2; TMC suffers shock defeat in West Bengal

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The assembly by-election results on Thursday brought some solace for the Congress as it wrested one seat each from the BJP and the TMC in Maharashtra and West Bengal respectively and retained a seat in Tamil Nadu with the support of allies, while the BJP and its ally AJSU bagged one seat each in the western state and Jharkhand.

The ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal suffered a shock defeat in Sagardighi which was won by Congress’ Bayron Biswas by 22,986 votes. It is the only seat held by the Congress in the state assembly.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee alleged the Congress and the CPI(M) had entered into an understanding with the BJP to defeat the Trinamool Congress with their “immoral” alliance.

Banerjee also said that her party will go it alone in the 2024 elections, “with the support of common people” and the Congress should refrain from calling itself anti-BJP.

“For the Sagardighi loss, I do not blame anyone… But, there is an immoral alliance, which we strongly condemn. The BJP transferred its votes to the Congress…. everyone played the communal card. The BJP, of course, played the communal card. The Congress, CPI(M), however, turned out to be bigger players in this regard,” she told reporters By-election to the constituency, seen as a prestige fight for state Congress president Adhir Chowdhury in his home district of Murshidabad, was necessitated following the death of state minister Subrata Saha in December last year.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) managed to hold on to Chinchwad seat in Maharashtra’s Pune but suffered a setback as it failed to retain Kasba Peth Assembly seat, its stronghold in the district.

Congress’s Ravindra Dhangekar defeated BJP’s Hemant Rasane in Kasba Peth by 10,950 votes, while Ashwini Jagtap of the BJP defeated Vitthal alias Nana Kate of the Nationalist Congress Party by 36,168 votes in Chinchwad, an industrial township near Pune.

The BJP held Kasba constituency for 28 years. Girish Bapat, the current BJP MP from Pune, represented the seat five times till 2019.

Dhangekar, who was supported by Maha Vikas Aghadi allies Nationalist Congress Party and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), polled 73,194 votes while Rasane received 62,244 votes, as per figures on the Election Commission’s website after the final round of counting.

In his reaction, Uddhav Thackeray said, “It is the outcome of the BJP’s policy of use and throw. They treated us this way and now even ticket was not given to a family member of late MLA Mukta Tilak.” Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, on the other hand, said they would introspect on the defeat, but the opposition’s victory was due to the individual calibre of the Congress candidate who did not even use Rahul Gandhi’s photo during the campaign.

While the Congress’ performance was dismal in the assembly polls in Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya, its general secretary communications Jairam Ramesh said the bypoll results were “very encouraging”.

“We are building the Congress for the future and those who thought they will make it big by breaking the Congress have not achieved any success,” Ramesh said in an apparent dig at TMC.

The bypolls saw the first direct contest between the ruling BJP-Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the opposing MVA after the change of government in Maharashtra in June last year.

As the bypolls had become an issue of prestige for the MVA as well as the ruling Shinde-BJP coalition in the state, senior leaders like NCP president Sharad Pawar, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis campaigned for their respective candidates.

The byelection was necessitated due to the death of incumbent BJP MLAs Mukta Tilak (Kasba) and Laxman Jagtap (Chinchwad).

Ruling DMK-backed Congress nominee EVKS Elangovan won in the Erode East byelection, with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin terming it a public endorsement of the “Dravidian model of governance” of his 22-month-old government.

Elangovan won more than one lakh of 1.7lakh votes polled on February 27.

With the “historic and grand win”, the ground was being prepared for an even iggervictory of the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Stalin told reporters.

BJP state president K Annamalai said he did not see it as an endorsement of the government’s performance and indicated factors like “sympathy” were also there, apparently referring to Elangovan being the father of E Thirumahan Everaa, the Congress MLA whose demise in January necessitated the byelection.

All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) candidate Sunita Choudhary won from Jharkhand’s Ramgarh defeating UPA-backed Congress’ Bajrang Mahto by a margin of 21,970 votes, the Election Commission said.

The AJSU Party, which tied up with the BJP for the by-poll, secured 1,15,669 votes, while the Congress, an ally of the ruling JMM-led coalition, bagged 93,699 votes after the completion of counting, it said.

The by-election was necessitated due to the disqualification of Congress legislator Mamta Devi, following her conviction in a criminal case.

The EC had in January announced that bypolls to the Lakshadweep Lok Sabha seat, along with six Assembly seats spread over five states – Maharashtra, Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu – would be held on February 27.

The Lakshadweep seat was vacated following the disqualification of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) member Mohammed Faizal after his conviction in a criminal case.

However, on January 30, the EC withheld the Lakshadweep Lok Sabha byelection l after the Kerala High Court suspended the conviction and sentence of Faizal.

On January 25, the poll panel “revised” the date of polling, from February 27 to February 26, for bypolls in two assembly seats of Maharashtra’s Pune district after it was informed about the dates clashing with scheduled class 12 and graduation exams there.

In Arunachal Pradesh’s Lumla seat, BJP candidate Tsering Lhamu has declared elected the MLA without a contest on February 10.

Lhamu, the wife of former MLA Jambey Tashi, was the only candidate who filed her nomination for the by-election which was necessitated due to the death of her husband in November last year.