New Delhi: INDIA bloc parties won four assembly seats and were leading on six, while the BJP clinched one, and it and an Independent were ahead on one each as votes were counted Saturday for the by-elections held earlier this week, according to the trends on the EC website.
Wednesday, by-polls for 13 assembly seats were held in Punjab (1), Himachal Pradesh (3), Uttarakhand (2), West Bengal (4), Madhya Pradesh (1), Bihar (1) and Tamil Nadu (1).
The Congress, TMC, AAP and DMK are among the INDIA bloc parties that fielded candidates in the bypolls.
In Punjab, Mohinder Bhagat of the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the state won the Jalandhar West seat by defeating his nearest rival and BJP nominee Sheetal Angural by a margin of 37,325 votes, the Election Commission (EC) said.
The seat fell vacant after Angural resigned as the AAP legislator and joined the BJP in March.
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said the victory with a big lead in the seat shows that the people of the state are “very happy” with his government’s work.
In Tamil Nadu, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (DMK) Anniyur Siva was ahead of PMK’s Anbumani C by 58,785 votes in the Vikravandi assembly seat, the website showed.
Trinamool Congress’ (TMC) Krishna Kalyani defeated BJP’s Manas Kumar Ghosh by a margin of 50,077 votes in the Raiganj assembly seat, Mukut Nami Adhikari defeated BJP’s Manoj Kumar Bsiwas by 74,485 votes in Ranaghat Dakshin and Madhuparna Thakur defeated BJP’s Binay Kumar Biswas by 74,251 votes in Bagda.
In the Maniktala seat in the state, TMC’s Supti Pandey ahead of BJP’s Kalyan Choubey by 47, 827 votes, according to the EC.
Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s wife and Congress candidate Kamlesh Tahkur defeated BJP’s Hoshiyar Singh by a margin of 9,399 votes to win the Dehra assembly seat. In Nalagarh, Congress’ Hardeep Singh Bawa won against BJP’s KL Thakur by 25,618 votes.
The BJP won the Hamirpur seat with its candidate Ashish Sharma polling 27,041 votes against Congress’ Pushpinder Verma 25,470 votes, the website showed.
The Congress’ candidates for the Badrinath and Manglaur bypolls — Lakhpat Singh Butola and Qazi Nizamuddin — in Uttarakhand were leading in both seats, according to the poll panel.
BJP’s Rajendra Bhandari was trailing by 5,224 votes in Badrinath, while in Manglaur, BJP’s Kartar Singh Bhadana was in second spot and BSP’s Ubaidur Rahman at third.
In Madhya Pradesh’s Amarwar seat, BJP’s Kamslesh Pratap Shahi was leading by 3,252 votes against Congress’ Dheeran Shah Invati, while in Bihar, JD(U)’s Kaladhar Prasad Mandal was trailing by 8,204 votes against Independent candidate Shankar Singh in Rupauli, the EC website showed.
PTI