The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won the Jalandhar West Assembly bypoll in Punjab as the opposition INDIA bloc looked set to give the ruling BJP a jolt in the by-elections for 13 seats across seven states. The INDIA bloc is leading in 10 of the rest 12 seats.
The bypolls are being considered as a litmus test for the BJP, which is reeling from the rude shock of failing to clear the majority mark in last month’s Lok Sabha elections.
The counting of votes began at 8 am at key constituencies in West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Bihar.
The fiercely contested bypolls, that took place on July 10, are the first since the Lok Sabha election, with the ruling BJP and the opposition INDIA bloc, comprising Congress, Trinamool Congress, DMK and the Aam Aadmi Party, vying for the seats.
In West Bengal, where four seats are up for grabs, Trinamool Congress’s Madhupurna Thakur was leading by 12,444 votes in Bagda. The ruling party’s candidates also took the lead in Ranaghat, Maniktala and Raiganj.
Congress candidate Qazi Nizamuddin was ahead in Uttarakhand’s Manglaur with 12,540 votes, followed by BSP nominee Ubedur Rehman, and the BJP’s Gujjar leader Kartar Singh Bhadana a distant third. The constituency had witnessed violence on the day of polling.
In Badrinath, Congress newcomer Lakhpat Singh Butola was leading. He is facing off against BJP’s Rajendra Bhandari.
In Punjab’s Jalandhar West seat, AAP's Mohinder Bhagat defeated his nearest rival and Congress nominee Surinder Kaur by 37.325 votes. Bypolls were announced in the constituency after Sheetal Angural, the AAP legislator, jumped ship to the BJP.
The ruling DMK's candidate Anniyur Siva (alias Sivashanmugam A) was leading in the Vikravandi assembly constituency in Tamil Nadu in early trends. He is pitted against C Anbumani and Naam Tamilar Katchi's K Abinaya.
In Bihar, JD(U)'s Kaladhar Prasad Mandal was leading by 2,433 votes over his nearest rival, an independent candidate, in the Rupauli bypoll. RJD nominee Bima Bharti was in third place with 2,359 votes.
The bypoll was necessitated by the resignation of sitting MLA Bima Bharti, who quit the JD(U) to contest Lok Sabha elections on an RJD ticket.
In the Amarwara constituency in Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh, Kamlesh Pratap Shah of the BJP was leading by 4,160 votes over Congress' Dheeran Shah Invati.
The seat fell vacant after three-time Congress MLA Kamlesh Shah switched to the BJP in March. The outcome is being closely watched, as Chhindwara was considered a stronghold of senior Congress leader Kamal Nath until recently.
The hill state of Himachal Pradesh was witnessing a Congress surge, with the ruling party’s candidates leading in all three seats that went to bypolls. Chief Minister Sukhvinder Sukhu’s wife Kamlesh Thakur was leading in Dehra with 16,984 votes. BJP nominee Hoshiyar Singh was close behind with 15,169 votes.
In the Hamirpur seat, Congress's Pushpinder Verma was ahead by 1,707 votes against BJP candidate Ashish Sharma. Hardeep Singh Bawa of the Congress was also leading by 1,571 votes against the BJP’s KL Thakur in Nalagarh.
All three BJP candidates used to be independent legislators, who resigned from the Himachal assembly after voting for the saffron party in the Rajya Sabha polls earlier this year.
