Setback For BJP as Opposition Wins Big in West Bengal, Bihar, Chhattisgarh & Maharashtra Bypolls
12:28 GMT 16.04.2022 (Updated: 19:51 GMT 31.10.2022)
© AP Photo / DIPTENDU DUTTA
Subscribe
India's federally governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may have won elections to four state legislatures last month, including the country's most populous Uttar Pradesh, but they are no longer an all-conquering force at the moment. In what could easily be termed as a major embarrassment, they lost all five bypolls held this month.
In a major jolt to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP, it lost all the five bypolls to the opposition. The elections to a parliamentary and four assembly constituencies were held on 12 April, with the results being announced on Saturday.
The biggest setback for the governing party at the centre came from Bengal, where actor-turned-politician and former BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha bagged the Asansol Lok Sabha seat for the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
Sinha's victory from Asansol marks TMC boosting its positions in West Bengal, where a BJP candidate won the constituency in the two previous election cycles.
The firebrand leader's triumph ensures his return to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India's parliament, for the first time since 2019. At the time he was beaten by former federal minister Ravi Shankar Prasad from Patna Sahib in his home state of Bihar.
Meanwhile, in Ballygunge, Babul Supriyo, who was a federal minister in PM Modi's Cabinet until last year, emerged as the winner on a TMC ticket.
While Sinha defeated Agnimitra Paul of the BJP by a huge margin of over 200,000 votes, Supriyo overcame the challenge of Keya Ghosh in Ballygunge.
The BJP was left disappointed with the results from other states too, as its candidates lost in Chhattisgarh's Khairagarh, Kolhapur North of Maharashtra, and Bihar's Bochahan.
Congress registered comfortable wins in both Khairagarh and Kolhapur North, while Bochahan went into Rashtriya Janata Dal's (RJD) kitty as its candidate Amar Paswan trumped BJP's Baby Kumari by more than 36,000 votes.
The biggest setback for the governing party at the centre came from Bengal, where actor-turned-politician and former BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha bagged the Asansol Lok Sabha seat for the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
Sinha's victory from Asansol marks TMC boosting its positions in West Bengal, where a BJP candidate won the constituency in the two previous election cycles.
The firebrand leader's triumph ensures his return to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India's parliament, for the first time since 2019. At the time he was beaten by former federal minister Ravi Shankar Prasad from Patna Sahib in his home state of Bihar.
Meanwhile, in Ballygunge, Babul Supriyo, who was a federal minister in PM Modi's Cabinet until last year, emerged as the winner on a TMC ticket.
While Sinha defeated Agnimitra Paul of the BJP by a huge margin of over 200,000 votes, Supriyo overcame the challenge of Keya Ghosh in Ballygunge.
The BJP was left disappointed with the results from other states too, as its candidates lost in Chhattisgarh's Khairagarh, Kolhapur North of Maharashtra, and Bihar's Bochahan.
Congress registered comfortable wins in both Khairagarh and Kolhapur North, while Bochahan went into Rashtriya Janata Dal's (RJD) kitty as its candidate Amar Paswan trumped BJP's Baby Kumari by more than 36,000 votes.
