Despite its victories in Maharashtra and Haryana, there was no good news for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. In the by-election results declared on Sunday, the saffron party failed to retain the Kairana Assembly seat in Shamli district — one of the areas worst affected by the Muzaffarnagar communal riots last year.
The Samajwadi Party’s Nahid Hasan won the seat by defeating his nearest rival, the BJP’s Anil Chouhan, by a margin of 1,099 votes. While Mr. Hasan got 83,984 votes, Mr. Chouhan got 82,885 votes, said Returning Officer Suresh Kumar Mishra.
Congress candidate Arshad Hasan got 16,906 votes. A total of eight candidates had contested the elections, held after the BJP MLA representing the seat, Hukum Singh, won the Lok Sabha polls and became an MP from Shamli. The BJP’s defeat comes after it lost eight of the 11 seats in the Assembly by-polls last month to the ruling SP. The defeat takes the BJP’s tally of losses to nine out of 12 seats — all of them earlier held by the saffron party. The Assembly polls were necessitated in these 12 seats after the party successfully fielded the respective MLAs as its Lok Sabha candidates.
BJP wins Rajkot West by-pollRahi Gaikwad writes from Ahmedabad:
The BJP on Sunday won the Rajkot West Assembly by-election. The seat is considered to be prestigious because of its illustrious former representatives.
It was the first held by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2002 after current Karnataka Governor and former Gujarat Assembly Speaker Vajubhai Vala vacated it for him. The BJP’s Vijay Rupani defeated Congress candidate Jayanti Kalaria by over 23,000 votes.
