New Delhi: The results of by-polls in Telangana and other states, including Assam, have significant political messages, and that is, the BJP still has greater acceptability in new areas.
In TRS-stronghold Telangana, the party wrested the Huzurabad seat by a convincing margin of 23,855 votes. The saffron party polled 1,06,780 votes compared to 82,712 votes polled by TRS, with a mere 3,012 votes, the Congress finished a poor third.
Predictably, the TRS was on the defensive. TRS party working president KT Rama Rao, son of CM K Chandrashekhar Rao, appealed to party workers to "work with increased resolve to forge ahead in future battles."
BJP state president Bandi Sanjay said: "The poll results were a fitting lesson to the arrogance and the money power of TRS". He claimed the people of Telangana have "lost faith" in Chief Minister and TRS chief Rao. Union Tourism Minister G. Kishan Reddy said people stood by the right candidate, Eatala Rajender.
Huzurabad has been a TRS stronghold since 2004, and Rajender has represented the constituency for four terms between 2009 and 2021. Rajender has served as the Finance Minister of Telangana from 2014 to 2018 and as the Health Minister from 2019 to 2021.
BJP dominates North East:
The BJP came to power In Assam in 2016, and its ally NPP assumed office in Meghalaya in 2018. In both states, the NDA remains the dominating force. The state ruling BJP and its ally have won all the five Assembly constituencies — Mariani, Gossaigaon, Tamulpur, Bhabanipur and Thowra. Congress turncoats Rupjyoti Kurmi and Sushanta Borgohain won the Mariani and Thowra constituencies, respectively.
BJP ally UPPL's Jiron Basumatary won the Gossaigaon seat in the Bodo Territorial Region while Phanidhar Talukdar retained the Bhabanipur seat, which he had earlier won on an AIUDF ticket.
In Meghalaya, the ruling party NPP led by Conrad Sangma won the Rajabala assembly constituency as its candidate, Md. Abdus Saleh defeated his nearest opponent Hashina Yashmin Mondal of the Congress by a margin of over 1,900 votes.
BJP's alliance partner MNF in Mizoram won the by-poll to the Tuirial assembly seat.
The by-polls in 13 states and one Union Territory on Oct 30 have otherwise thrown up a mixed bag of results in some ways. The saffron party also retained its supremacy in Shivraj Singh Chouhan-ruled Madhya Pradesh.
The Lotus party could wrest two assembly seats from Congress. It won the Prithvipur assembly seat from Congress by a margin of 15,687 votes. The BJP nominee snatched Jobat (ST) Assembly constituency from Congress with its candidate Sulochana Rawat defeating Congress rival Mahesh Patel by a margin of 6,104 votes. However, the BJP lost the Raigoan (SC) seat to Congress.
The poll outcome in West Bengal shows that the BJP's organisational weaknesses have surfaced again, especially post-poll violence in the state. "The resistance against Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress remains to be built up," state BJP spokesman Shamik Bhattacharya said.
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