The results of seven Assembly bypolls across six states announced on Friday, September 8, signalled a mixed bag for rival camps with the ruling BJP at the Centre winning three seats and opposition Congress, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Samajwadi Party and Trinamool Congress taking one each. The CPM emerged the top loser with the Congress-led UDF defeating it in Kerala’s Puthuppally and the BJP wresting Tripura’s Boxanagar from it. Overall, the BJP retained two of the three seats it earlier held (Dhanpur in Tripura; Bageshwar in Uttarakhand) and bagged Boxanagar from the CPM. The INDIA parties either fought or defeated one another in West Bengal, Kerala and Uttarakhand. In Bengal, INDIA partners Congress and CPM allied against the TMC, which bagged the Dhupguri segment from the BJP by a margin of around 4,300 votes.
In Kerala, the Congress-led opposition UDF candidate Chandy Oomen trounced the CPM-led LDF’s Jack Thomas by over 37,000 votes. In the INDIA bloc, the Congress and CPM are allies. Again in Uttarakhand, the BJP retained Bageshwar by a narrow margin of 2,400 votes with the Congress and SP both in the fray. INDIA parties won comfortably in two seats where they put up a united show. These include Jharkhand’s Dumri which the JMM retained by a margin of over 17,000 votes, defeating NDA ally All Jharkhand Students’ Union. In Uttar Pradesh’s Ghosi, united opposition candidate Sudhakar Singh beat the BJP’s Dara Singh Chauhan. This bypoll was necessitated because Chauhan, a sitting SP MLA, crossed over to the BJP.
INDIA alliance however could not deter the BJP from bagging the minority-dominated Boxanagar from the CPM in Tripura, where saffron nominee Tafajjal Hossain won by a margin of over 30,000 votes against the united opposition-backed CPM’s Mizan Hossain.
While Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav both declared today’s results a thumbs up for the INDIA bloc, BJP’s Sambit Patra (in charge for the Northeast) said the results signalled the end of the road for communists.