New Delhi: Despite having all the resources at its hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could win only four of the seven assembly seats, by-elections for which were held on November 3 and results declared on Sunday.
Only wins that the party could draw satisfaction from was that of Gopalpur in Bihar and Dhamnanagar in Odisha where the party candidates won. In Gopalpur, BJP’s Kusuma Devi defeated her Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) rival by a margin of over 2,000 votes, although Union Home Minister Amit Shah visited the state several times before the by-poll. The Mokama seat went to the RJD.
The party won the Golagokarannath seat in Lakhimpur Kheri district of Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP is ruling. Besides, the party won in Adampur district, Haryana.
Nevertheless, the party lost the most prestigious by-election to the candidate of K Chandrashekhar Rao-led Telangana Rashtra Samithi in Munugode. In Maharashtra, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena faction won from Andheri (east) assembly seat in Mumbai.
The TRS victory dealt a severe blow to the BJP, which forced the by-election by luring Rajagopal Reddy to its camp. He resigned from the assembly seat and the Congress in August and joined the BJP at a public rally addressed by Shah in Munugode. In 2018, Rajagopal Reddy won Nunugode seat on Congress ticket, defeating his nearest rival Prabhakar Reddy of the TRS by 23, 552 votes.
