Rahul Gandhi
Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday asked all the parties to draw lessons from victories and defeats, as he congratulated the winners of today's bypoll results in various states.
"Congratulations to all the winners in the by polls, across India. Valuable lessons to be learnt from the victories and defeats for all parties. I want to thank all the workers and leaders of the Congress party for their hard work and dedication in these elections. God bless you all," he said on Twitter.
The BJP suffered reverses managing to win just one of the four Lok Sabha seats and one of the 10 assembly seats, where bypolls were held. The NCP and the RLD won one Lok Sabha seat each while BJP ally NDPP emerged winner in the lone Nagaland seat.
The Congress bagged three assembly seats (in Meghalaya, Karnataka and Punjab) and others got six -- JMM two in Jharkhand; CPI (M), SP, RJD and Trinamool one each in Kerala, UP, Bihar and West Bengal, respectively.
Opposition leaders latched onto today's results across 11 states to claim sliding popularity of the Narendra Modi-led government, even as the BJP played down the outcome saying people do not vote for a prime minister or chief minister in such elections but are driven by local issues.
A united opposition got a major boost on Thursday when it delivered a huge blow to the BJP, defeating it in the Kairana Lok Sabha by-election in Uttar Pradesh and Bhandara-Gondiya in Maharashtra while the saffron party managed to retain the Palghar parliamentary seat and win only one out of the 10 Assembly bypolls in 10 states.
(With agency inputs)
