New Delhi, Dec 8 (Agency) The BJP and the Congress won two seats each, while regional outfits Rashtriya Lok Dal and Biju Janata Dal registered one victory apiece in by-polls to six Assembly seats where votes were counted on Thursday. it was a mixed bag for the BJP in the county’s most populous state Uttar Pradesh, where it snatched the Rampur Sadar constituency from the Samajwadi Party, but conceded the Khatauli seat to the Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Janata Dal. Interestingly, vacancies were caused in the two seats following the disqualification of the sitting legislators on conviction.
While SP lawmaker from Rampur Sadar Mohammad Azam Khan was disqualified from the assembly seat after being convicted for three years in a hate speech case, bjp’S Khatauli MLA Vikram Singh Saini forfeited his membership of the Assembly after being jailed in a riots case. In Khatauli, RLD’s Madan Bhaiya (Madan Singh Kasana) humbled his nearest rival BJP aspirant and Vikram’s wife Rajkumari Saini by a margin of 22,165 votes. In Rampur Sadar, BJP contestant Akash Saxena alias Honey defeated SP nominee Asim Raja by 34,100 votes. Notably, except in 1996, Azam had never lost an assembly election after being elected from this seat since 1980, when he first contested on a Janata Party ticket. BJP also gained the Kurhani assembly seat in Bihar, as its candidate Kedar Prasad Gupta prevailed over his nearest rival Manoj Kushwaha of JD(U) by a margin of more than 3600 votes. Kushwaha was backed by the ruling Grand Alliance, of which JD(U), Congress and RJD are constituents.
Kurhani had gone to the hustings after the disqualification of RJD MLA Anil Kumar Sahni from the House following his conviction in a fraud case. After the formation of the Grand Alliance government earlier this year, RJD left the seat to the JD(U) for the by-poll. The ruling Congress kept its hold on Chhattisgarh’s Bhanupratappur constituency, where its nominee Savitri Mandavi got past her nearest rival Brahmanand Netam (BJP) by a margin of 21,171 votes. The tribal community’s Akbar Korram was a distant third with 23,417. The Bhupesh Baghel dispensation’s unbroken winning streak vis-à-vis by-polls thus continued since it assumed the reins in 2018. The by-election was necessitated by the demise of Deputy Speaker Manoj Mandavi. The victorious nominee is his widow. In Rajasthan, the ruling Congress retained the Sardarshahar constituency. The party’s candidate Anil Kumar Sharma trounced the BJP’s Ashok Kumar by 26,696 votes. The Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP)’s nominee Lal Chand Moond came third with 46,628 votes. The election took place to fill the vacancy caused after sitting Congress MLA Bhanwar Lal Sharma expired. Odisha’s ruling BJD also retained the Padampur seat with its candidate Barsha Singh Bariha triumphing over her nearest BJP rival Pradeep Purohit by more than 42,000 votes. Barsha is the daughter of Bijaya Ranjan Singh Bariha, whose demise created the vacancy.