BJP could barely manage to retain three seats of the 11 it had held, conceding even Rohniya in PM Narendra Modi’s Varanasi parliament constituency. The party had won 75 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state four months ago in the general elections, thanks to a strong Modi wave.
However, BJP rejected claims of rivals that the Modi wave was over, saying the defeats came due to local factors and the central government had nothing to do with the bypolls. Gorakhpur MP Yogi Adityanath, who had courted controversy for holding a rally after the Election Commission ban on him due to provocative speeches during election campaigning, said his party won wherever he had campaigned.
SP candidate Shivcharan Prajapat registered victory with the highest margin, defeating Jagdish Prasad of BJP by 68556 votes at Hamirpur. The other winning candidates of the party were Mahendra S. Patel in Rohaniya, Bansidhar Bauddh in Balha, Vachaspati in Sirathu, Kaptan Singh in Charkhari, Krishana Gopal Patel at Nighasan and Navab Jan in Thakurdwara.
BJP’s loss is Congress’ gain in Rajasthan, Gujarat
BJP also conceded grounds to Congress in Rajasthan and Gujarat. Congress won three of four assembly seats in Rajasthan and two in Gujarat which went to vote without Narendra Modi after 12 years.
Sharwan Kumar of Congress won Surajgarh in Rajasthan as Bhajanlala and Ramnarayan registered wins in Weir and Nasirabad respectively. Kota South went to BJP.
In Gujarat, Congress snatched three from BJP which won six assembly and Vadodara Lok Sabha constituency which was vacated by PM Modi after general elections.
TRS retained Medak in Telangana. Rup Narayan Chamling, independent, won Rangang-Yangang in Sikkim, Pravat Chowdhury of CPM in Manu, Tripura and Kalyan Singh Thakur of BJP in Vidisha of Madhya Pradesh.
