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Ever since the results of the Lok Sabha elections were announced on 4th June, leaders across party lines started introspecting themselves to pull up their socks to get ready for assembly bypolls to be held in 13 seats in the States of Himachal Pradesh (3 seats), Uttarakhand (2 seats), Tamil Nadu (1 seat), Bihar (1 seat), Madhya Pradesh (1 seat), Punjab (1 seat) and West Bengal (4 seats).
The byelections were seen to be politically very significant given the fact that the election had put the decision of the voters into question again as to which party they were going to place their trust in after the recently concluded Lok Sabha Elections. For the BJP, it was a litmus test to revive themselves morally after falling short of a majority in the House for the first time since 2014, and for Congress, it was to maintain their best ever performance after decades to keep the BJP away from the books.
As the results were announced on 13th July, some interesting observations could be made based on the performance of INDIA bloc as well as the NDA. As of 6pm on 13th July, the INDIA Bloc emerged victorious by winning 10 seats, while the NDA managed to win only 2 seats, with 1 seat going to an independent candidate.
Constitutionally, the following are the seats that parties won in the assembly byelections:
State wise Observations:-
Himachal Pradesh
Politically, the results show that the dominance of Congress is very active in Himachal Pradesh at a time when the BJP bagged all 4 Lok Sabha seats, along with the case of Shukvinder Singh's government becoming politically uncertain with Rebellious Congress MLAs and independent candidates withdrawing support from the government last year. The result in Himachal Pradesh showed that people have trust in the incumbent state government under Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, for which the electoral mandate for CM's wife Kamlesh Thakur from Dehra, who made her electoral debut, was in her favor, who won the seat with a whopping margin of 9399 votes. The BJP could only win Hamirpur with a mere margin of 1571 votes in a neck-to-neck fight, which proved that the tactics of the BJP to topple democratically elected governments through horse-trading and defections failed with voters sticking to their respective mandates by not voting for the turncoats.
West Bengal
In West Bengal, it was expected that Trinamool Congress would comfortably win all 4 seats as the state performed exceptionally well during the Lok Sabha Election and the TMC wave remained unchanged even during the assembly byelections. In fact, TMC took this bypoll as an opportunity to snatch Raiganj, Bagda, and Ranaghat Dakshin seats that were occupied by the BJP, with Krishna Kalyani from Raiganj winning by a massive margin of 50,077 votes, Madhuparna Thakur of Bagda winning by 33,455 votes, and Mukut Moni Adhikari winning by 39,048 votes from Ranaghat Dakshin. The most hyped Manicktala seat, which is traditionally considered a BJP bastion in Kolkata ever since the saffron party replaced the left as a major oppositional party, also went to TMC with a record margin, which means the BJP needs to do a lot of groundwork before the 2026 assembly elections.
Punjab
The bypoll result of Punjab is also significant for AAP as a major player in the state and how they are able to keep their trust consistent among voters when reports came in from some sections that the government is not delivering their poll promises. Although AAP could send only 3 MP's, the bypoll result came as a relief for the ruling party after party candidate Mohinder Bhagat comfortably won and retained the seat by a margin of 37,725 votes. The election was necessitated by Angural quitting the party to join the BJP in March, in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls. From the perspective of INDIA Alliance, the victory proved to be a setback for the NDA, whose presence in Punjab is still not as per their expectations. Partywise, the Congress, which had a lead by 1577 votes with Charanjit Singh Channi winning against the AAP during the Lok Sabha election, lost the byelection by a bigger margin, which suggests that in the future, the contest between the AAP and Congress will become more dramatic and dynamic.
Madhya Pradesh
The Amarwara seat of Madhya Pradesh remained a tight spot for both the BJP and Congress, as both parties were trailing as well as leading in each successive round. But at the end of the day, the BJP won the seat by a margin of 3027 seats. As for the BJP, this state remained politically very crucial, as Madhya Pradesh remained one of the states where the BJP had a clean sweep by winning all 30 seats, and winning this seat helped them to retain their status as a major player in this region. At present, the BJP, under the leadership of Mohan Yadav and Shivraj Singh Chowhan in the past, has taken a slew of measures to ensure holistic development of the state in all aspects, for which the BJP won the seat comfortably against the Congress, whose presence has been going down since their abysmal performance in the 2023 assembly election.
Uttarakhand
The Himalayan State of Uttarakhand, under the leadership of Pushkar Singh Dhammi, is under the radar for now as both Badrinath and Manglaur seats were lost by the BJP to Congress at a time when they won all 5 Lok Sabha seats. The reason behind the loss for the BJP must be the failure of the government to mitigate the land subsidence incidents, along with the inability of the administration to provide solutions to people who have lost their homes and livelihoods because of the same. The problem of unemployment and migration is also a major concern for the state, as an RTI in 2021 revealed that 5 lakh people had to migrate out of the state in search of employment in the last 10 years. In the past, the Congress was also responsible for unemployment in the state, but with the BJP in power, had they reversed the problem of unemployment with people-friendly guarantees, things could have been much better.
Bihar
The politics of Bihar, which revolve around JDU and RJD, seem to have flattered in this byelection, as the result showed that an independent candidate named Shankar Singh won the Rupauli seat by a handsome margin of 8246 votes to defeat both JDU and RJD. The interesting point of this result is that the voters are neither with RJD nor with JDU in this constituency, which suggests that in the future, the political chemistry between JDU and RJD needs to be revamped and reshaped in order to remain relevant within the minds of the voters.
Tamil Nadu
Lastly, the DMK, which has utter dominance in the state of Tamil Nadu, has comfortably won the Vikrawandi seat by a margin of 67,757 votes. Politically, the state is considered a stronghold for INDIA bloc in general and the DMK in particular, for which the NDA has almost zero presence in the state, with Pattali Matkal Kachi (a member of the NDA) losing the election. The issues that tend to dominate the most in Tamil Nadu that favor DMK in most elections include the forceful imposition of Hindi, Centre not releasing the funds for developmental projects, the NEET UG scam, polarization politics by the BJP, etc.
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