TMC wins Asansol and Ballygunge in bypolls
Highlights
- RJD wins Bochahan assembly seat in Bihar, defeating nearest BJP rival by margin of over 35,000 votes
- Trinamool Congress comfortably wins in Asansol, Ballygunge
- Congress wins bypoll in Maharashtra's Kohlapur North.
Bypoll results 2022 Live updates: AITMC candidate Babul Supriyo has won the Ballygunge bypoll beating the nearest Left Front competitor Saira Shah Halim by 20038 votes. TMC leader Shatrughan Sinha also won from the Asansol assembly seat by a margin of over 1 lakh votes. Sinha stood against BJP's Agnimitra Paul. After the final round of counting, Supriyo got 50722 votes. Halim received 30818 votes while BJP’s Keya Ghosh came third with 12967 votes. BJP had won the seat in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The by-polls, which took place on April 12, were necessitated as Supriyo resigned as the MP of Asansol after switching over to the TMC from the BJP, while state minister Subrata Mukherjee, who represented Ballygunge, died last year. West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee thanked voters from the Asansol Lok Sabha seat and Ballygunge Assembly Constituency for giving a decisive mandate to TMC candidates in both the seats, where by-polls were held.
Bihar
The opposition RJD in Bihar on Saturday wrested the Bochahan assembly seat from the ruling NDA, with its candidate won, defeating the BJP nominee by a large margin of over 35,000 votes. RJD candidate Amar Paswan, whose father Musafir Paswan’s death had necessitated the by-election, polled 82,116 votes while his nearest BJP rival Baby Kumari got only 45,353. Expelled state minister Mukesh Sahani’s Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), on the ticket of which Musafir Paswan had won the seat in 2020, finished a distant third with 29,671 votes. VIP was an NDA constituent till about a month ago.
Chhattisgarh
The Congress party won the Khairagarh Assembly by-poll in Chhattisgarh held on April 12. The bypoll was necessitated due to the death of Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J) MLA Devvrat Singh. The voter turnout was 77.88 per cent, and postal ballots will be counted first followed by the EVM ones. While 10 candidates were in the fray, political observers earlier said the fight was between the ruling Congress' Yashoda Verma and the BJP's Komal Janghel as the JCC(J) has lost considerable clout since the death of its founder and former chief minister Ajit Jogi in 2020. Incidentally, the Congress has promised to make Khairagarh a district if it wins the bypoll.
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Maharashtra
Over 60 per cent voter turnout was recorded in a byelection to the Kolhapur North assembly constituency in western Maharashtra on April 12. The election became necessary after incumbent Congress MLA Chandrakant Jadhav died due to COVID-19 in December 2021. There were 15 candidates in the fray, though the main fight was expected to be between Congress, one of the constituents of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in the state, and opposition BJP. Congress fielded Jayashree Jadhav, the wife of the late MLA, while the BJP fielded Satyajit Kadam. State BJP chief Chandrakant Patil claimed in Kolhapur that his party will win with "a high margin.
