The results of the Assembly by-elections announced on Tuesday sprang a few surprises and gave cause for worry for the ruling Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh and the Congress in Karnataka.
Both lost two of the three seats they had contested and held in the past.
The BJP and its allies won seven of the 12 seats in eight States.
The Congress and the BJP wrested two seats — Deoband and Muzaffarnagar — from the SP in Uttar Pradesh. The SP, however, retained Bikapur in Faizabad district.
In Deoband, Congress candidate Maviya Ali Khan won, while Kapil Deo Agarwal of the BJP won in Muzaffarnagar. The SP’s Anand Sen Yadav, a former Minister in the BSP government, won in Bikapur. Notably, in the 2014 by-polls in Uttar Pradesh, a few months after the Lok Sabha elections, the SP won nine of the 12 seats. In 2015, it won Charkhari and Pharendra.
