The Opposition INDIA alliance has emerged victorious in the by-elections to 13 Assembly seats across seven states, winning 10 seats. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which won a record third term in the Lok Sabha polls, managed to secure only two seats.
The INDIA bloc, comprising the Congress, Trinamool Congress (TMC), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), fielded candidates in the bypolls held on Wednesday in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Tamil Nadu.
State-Wise Results
- Punjab: AAP’s Mohinder Bhagat won the Jalandhar West seat by over 23,000 votes.
- West Bengal: Trinamool Congress candidates won all four seats, defeating BJP opponents by significant margins.
- Himachal Pradesh: Himachal Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s wife Kamlesh Thakur won the Dehra elections, while the Congress won the Nalagarh seat. BJP’s Ashish Sharma emerged the winner in Hamirpur.
- Tamil Nadu: The DMK’s Anniyur Siva won the Vikravandi assembly seat by nearly 60,000 votes.
- Uttarakhand: Congress candidates won both the Badrinath and Manglaur seats.
- Madhya Pradesh: The BJP’s Kamslesh Pratap Shahi won the Amarwar seat.
The counting of votes for the 13 legislative assembly seats began on Saturday morning, following voting on Wednesday. These bypolls were the first since the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which saw the BJP winning 240 seats, short of the majority mark. The NDA, however, managed to cross the halfway mark of 272 with a total tally of 293 seats, while the Congress-led INDIA bloc clinched 232 seats.
