The results of the byelections held in 6 states for a total of 7 assembly seats have been declared. By-polls were held in two seats in Bihar and one seat each in Haryana, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh. Achieving a remarkable victory, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 4 out of these 7 seats.
Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) secured one seat each. While BJP won a seat each in Bihar, Haryana, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh, RJD won in Bihar, Shiv Sena won in Maharashtra, and TRS won the byelection in Telangana. Earlier, out of these 7 seats, 3 were held by BJP, 2 by Congress, and one seat each by RJD and Uddhav Thackeray faction’s Shiv Sena.
Here is the state-wise results of the by-elections in detail.
RJD candidate Neelam Devi has won the Mokama seat in Bihar. At the same time, the BJP candidate Kusum Devi won from Gopalganj. In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP candidate has won the Gola Gokarnanath seat once again. BJP candidate Bhavya Bishnoi has won from Adampur seat in Haryana. BJP candidate Suryabanshi Suraj has won Odisha’s Dhamnagar seat.
Maharashtra
Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena’s Rutuja Latke secured an easy victory on the Andheri East seat in Maharashtra. BJP had withdrawn their candidate from this seat, and there was no strong candidate against the Shiv Sena (UT) candidate. Rutuja Latke is the wife of deceased Shiv Sena leader Ramesh Latke who was the MLA from this seat.
This was the first electoral battle in Maharashtra between Uddhav’s Shiv Sena and the BJP after the biggest split in the Shiv Sena. However, the BJP had withdrawn its candidate at the last minute, and MNS also refrained from contesting the polls. Due to this, the election became easier for Uddhav’s Shiv Sena candidate Rituja Latke. MNS chief Raj Thackeray had requested BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis not to field any candidate from BJP on this seat. He later congratulated BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis for not fielding their candidate against Rutuja Latke.
In absence of any substantial opposition, Rutuja Latke secured 76.9% votes. But what was more surprising than this was the vote share of NOTA (none of the above). 14.79% of voters opted for NOTA in Andheri East.
Mumbai: Despite conspiracies against us we won by-election. It's beginning of our victory. Our name & symbol were frozen, it's foolish to speak about those due to whom our party's symbol and name were frozen: Uddhav Thackeray after his party's Rutuja Latke won Andheri by-election pic.twitter.com/EOVFxR0nTk
— ANI (@ANI) November 6, 2022
While the Uddhav Thackeray faction of Shiv Sena won an election which had effectively no opposition, Uddhav Thackeray said that they won the election despite conspiracies against them.
Bihar
In Mokama of Bihar, the RJD candidate Neelam Devi, wife of local influential leader Anant Singh, defeated BJP’s Sonam Devi by 16,707 votes. The RJD got 79,646 votes and the BJP 62,939 votes. The margin of victory has reduced this time.
On the other hand, Gopalganj saw a very close contest, where BJP’s Kusum Devi defeated RJD’s Mohan Gupta by 1,794 votes. BJP received 70,053 votes against 68,259 secured by RJD candidate Mohan Prasad Gupta. This is a significant defeat for the ruling alliance as the JD(U)-RJD alliance had campaigned aggressively for the elections. However, it seems some of the alliance votes went to Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), benefiting BJP. The AIMIM candidate got 122,14 votes while the BSP candidate secured 8,854 votes, both much more than the winning margin.
Uttar Pradesh
BJP candidate Aman Giri has won the by-election to the Gola Gokarnanath seat in Lakhimpur Kheri. He defeated Samajwadi Party candidate Vinay Tiwari by a margin of 34,298 votes. In the margin, he has also broken the record of his father Arvind Giri. In 2022, Arvind Giri defeated Vinay Tiwari of SP by a margin of 29,294 votes.
Notably, Congress and BSP didn’t contest the Gola Gokarnanath by-poll, resulting in a straight fight between BJP and SP. Mayawati had said that her party decided against contesting as there was palpably significant support for Aman Giri, as he was expected to receive all the sympathy and support after the death of his father and sitting MLA Arvind Giri. On the other hand, the Congress party didn’t want to cut SP votes by contesting the polls.
Haryana
BJP candidate Bhavya Bishnoi won the by-election to the Adampur Assembly seat in Haryana’s Hisar district by over 15,000 votes. With this victory, Bhavya Bishnoi, the third generation politician from former chief minister Chaudhary Bhajan Lal’s family, is registering a successful entry into politics. Bhavya Bishnoi contested on a BJP ticket this time and also managed to win it. With his victory, the BJP has also managed to win in Adampur for the first time. Bhavya Bishnoi maintained victory in all 13 rounds of counting and secured a total of 67492 votes. Congress candidate Jai Prakash stood second in this electoral battle with 51752 votes. After the counting of votes was completed, Jai Prakash said he would again contest the 2024 elections from Adampur.
There were a total of 22 candidates in the election. Indian Lok Dal received 5241 votes, while Aam Aadmi Party candidate Satinder Singh came fourth with 3420 votes, which was 2.6% of the total votes polls.
Telangana
The Munugodu by-poll in Telangana saw the highest number of 47 candidates in these by-elections. TRS candidate Kusukuntala Prabhakar Reddy defeated BJP’s Komatireddy Raj Gopal Reddy in this poll. TRS got 97006 votes while BJP got 86697. Congress came a distant third with around 23906 votes, and the BSP candidate secured 4146 votes. There were 33 independent candidates in Munugodu, and several smaller parties.
Odisha
In a significant victory, BJP’s Suryavanshi Suraj won the Dhamnagar assembly seat in Odisha by a margin of 9,881 votes. BJD’s Abanti Das lost the elections by securing 70470 votes, while the BJP candidate got 80351. The by-election was necessitated by the BJP MLA Bishnu Charan Sethi, and BJP had fielded Sethi’s son Suryavanshi Suraj. Congress candidate Baba Harekrushna Sethy received just 3561 votes, less than independent candidate Rajendra Kumar Das.
