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BJP wins SP bastions, AAP loses Punjab seat
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath said Sunday’s outcomes reflected the mood ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, adding that the BJP was set to win all 80 parliamentary constituencies from the state.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday clinched Samajwadi Party (SP) bastions of Azamgarh and Rampur in Lok Sabha bypolls in Uttar Pradesh, while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) suffered a setback in Punjab’s Sangrur parliamentary constituency, vacated by chief minister Bhagwant Mann, in results for high-profile seats in the latest electoral battle.
While the two Lok Sabha seats in UP were previously held by former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and senior SP leader Azam Khan, the Punjab seat was considered a stronghold of Mann, who recently became the chief minister of the state after his party wrested control in the assembly elections. The Punjab seat went to Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) candidate Simranjit Singh Mann, reducing the AAP’s tally in the Lower House to zero.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath said Sunday’s outcomes reflected the mood ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, adding that the BJP was set to win all 80 parliamentary constituencies from the state.
Yadav, however, called the results a murder of democracy. “The chronology of murder of democracy in BJP rule: ... misuse of force to prevent voting, irregularities in counting, pressure on public representatives and dismantling the elected governments.”
The voting for the bypolls was held on June 23.
By-elections were also held for seven assembly seats across Delhi, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand. In Delhi’s Rajinder Nagar, the AAP’s Durgesh Pathak defeated BJP candidate Rajesh Bhatia by a margin of over 11,000 votes, according to an official.
Shortly after the BJP’s wins in Azamgarh and Rampur, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted: “The by-poll wins in Azamgarh and Rampur are historic. They indicate wide-scale acceptance and support for the double engine governments at the Centre and in UP. Grateful to the people for their support. I appreciate the efforts of our party karyakartas.”
Union home minister Amit Shah said: “Under PM Modi’s leadership, the win is a vote for UP’s good governance model of Yogi Adityanath’s government.”
The BJP’s candidate who won the Azamgarh seat was Dinesh Lal Yadav “Nirahua”. He defeated Dharmendra Yadav of the SP by 8,679 votes. The BJP candidate polled 312,768 votes and the SP leader got 304,089 votes.
In Rampur, BJP candidate Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi defeated Mohammad Asim Raja of the Samajwadi Party by 42,192 votes. Lodhi polled 367,397 votes and Raja got 325,205 votes.
Such was the SP dominance in the two seats that even as the party was reduced to five parliamentary seats in 2019, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav won the Azamgarh seat by about 259,000 votes, while senior party leader Azam Khan won the Rampur seat by about 109,000 votes. In the 2022 assembly elections, the SP bagged three assembly seats – Rampur Sadar, Suar and Chamrua – which are part of the Rampur Lok Sabha constituency, and also won all five assembly seats — Mehnagar, Sagadi, Gopalpur, Azamgarh Sadar and Mubarakpur — under the Azamgarh Lok Sabha constituency.
In a tweet on Sunday, Adityanath said: “The historic victory of the BJP candidates in the by-elections to the Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats is the result of the welfare policies of the double engine BJP government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”
Khan alleged that the BJP misused the government machinery in the state to engineer the SP’s defeat.
The BJP’s tally of Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh has risen from 62 to 64, while the SP has been reduced to three seats.
In Punjab, Simranjeet Singh Mann’s victory came as a blow to the newly formed AAP government. Simranjit Singh Mann beat AAP’s Gurmail Singh by a margin of 5,822 votes, securing 253,154 votes, with Singh getting 247,332 votes. With this, the AAP lost its only member of the Lok Sabha.
Since 2014, Sangrur was considered the AAP and Bhagwant Mann’s stronghold, where he won both in 2014 and 2019. In the March 2022 assembly polls, the party swept all nine segments of this Lok Sabha seat.
Simranjit Singh Mann said his win was a victory of the people who stood against the “misrule of the AAP”. “People have rejected the AAP within three months of formation of government. Law and order has collapsed and people are feeling unsafe, thus they punished the inexperienced AAP government. Delhi wants to control the state, and Punjabis rejected this proposition,” said Simranjit Singh Mann, a pro-Khalistan leader who has been an MP twice before.
Chief minister Mann said that he accepted the verdict. “I bow before the verdict. I am working day and night for the progress and prosperity of Punjab and I will work harder…I am your son and I will spare no effort to brighten the future of your families,” he tweeted.
The ruling BJP won three assembly seats and the Congress bagged one in the Tripura by-elections. Chief minister Manik Saha was among the BJP winners, while Sudip Roy Barman of the Congress, who had quit the BJP, won the Agartala seat. The BJP previously held three and the CPI(M) one of these four seats.
In Jharkhand, Congress candidate Shilpi Neha Tirkey won the Mandar seat, defeating her nearest rival, the BJP’s Gangotri Kujur, by a margin of 23,690 votes, the Election Commission said.
The ruling YSR Congress retained the Atmakuru assembly seat in SPS Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh by a huge margin of 82,888 votes.
Experts said the BJP’s victory in the SP bastions showed the saffron party’s popularity after a comfortable victory in the state polls earlier this year.
SK Srivastava, a political observer in UP, said: “The BJP’s victory in Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha constituencies, considered strong SP forts, will set the tone for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Despite the Modi wave in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP failed to win the Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat then. Though the BJP bagged the Rampur seat in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, it lost the seat in 2019. Riding on the Yadav-Muslim alliance, the SP won both Azamgarh and Rampur seats (in 2019).”
In Azamgarh, SP candidate Dharmendra Yadav was involved in an argument with security personnel during counting of votes over alleged denial of entry in the strongroom. He alleged that an attempt was made to change EVMs and that is why he was not allowed entry inside. Election officials denied his allegations.
Dharmendra Yadav blamed an “alliance” between the BJP and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party for his defeat. “As far as the defeat (in the bypoll) is concerned, I will congratulate the alliance between the BJP and the BSP for my defeat, which has become evident in the presidential election. A number of conspiracies were hatched by the BSP, BJP, the UP government and the Centre,” he said.
