India’s opposition INDIA bloc, which put up a spirited performance in recent parliamentary polls, won 10 seats while BJP got two as votes were counted today for 13 assembly seats where by-elections were held on Wednesday across seven states.
While West Bengal’s ruling TMC swept all four seats, Congress secured two out of the three seats in Himachal Pradesh and won both the seats in Uttarakhand ruled by BJP that went to by-elections, reports our New Delhi correspondent.
Aam Aadmi Party emerged victorious in the lone seat in Punjab and DMK won by-polls in one constituency in Tamil Nadu.
The by-polls were the first since the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in which BJP bagged 240 seats — 32 short of the majority in the 543-member Lok Sabha. The NDA, however, managed to cross the halfway mark of 272 with a total tally of 293 seats. Congress-led INDIA bloc clinched 232 seats.
In West Bengal by-elections, TMC bagged all the four seats with its candidates defeating BJP rivals by margins in Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin, and Bagda Maniktala (in Kolkata) constituencies.
Congress, TMC, Aam Aadmi Party, and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) are part of INDIA bloc which put up candidates in the by-polls held Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Tamil Nadu.
Congress won both assembly seats in Uttarakhand, a state ruled by BJP with party candidate Qazi Mohammad Nizammudin winning Mangraul by 400 votes. The party also won in Badrinath.
Congress candidate and Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh’s wife Kamlesh Thakur secured victory on her debut in Dehra by over 9,000 votes while BJP’s Ashish Sharma won against Congress candidate Pushpinder Verma in Hamipur constituency in the state.
In Madhya Pradesh, ruling BJP won a seat in the by-poll while in Punjab, Aam Aadmi Party’s Mohinder Bhagat won Jalandhar West seat by over 23,000 votes against his BJP rival.
