New Delhi: The BJP has emerged victorious in three seats – Adampur in Haryana, Gopalganj in Bihar and Gola Gokarnnath in Uttar Pradesh – while the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) sealed a victory in Bihar’s Mokama constituency, the Election Commission said on Sunday, November 6.Counting for seven constituencies spread across six states began on Sunday morning.The BJP gained the Adampur seat from the Congress, while the status quo was maintained in five constituencies. The TRS was ahead of the BJP in Telangana’s Munugode. If that trend holds, it will gain the seat from the Congress.The Congress looks set to lose both seats it held earlier.The RJD’s Neelam Devi won the Mokama constituency in Bihar, while BJP’s Bhavya Bishnoi won in Adampur defeating his nearest rival and Congress candidate Jai Prakash by a margin of around 16,000 votes. BJP’s Kusum Devi, the window of Subhash Singh whose death had necessitated the by-election in Gopalgang, emerged victorious. She polled 70,032 votes, while the RJD’s Mohan Gupta got 68,243.The BJP’s Aman Giri won the Gola Gokarannath assembly bypoll in Uttar Pradesh by defeating his nearest rival and Samajwadi Party candidate Vinay Tiwari by over 34,000 votes.Rutuja Latke, the candidate of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), won the Andheri (East) assembly seat in Mumbai. All the major parties have supported Latke’s candidacy. The bypoll was necessitated by the death of her husband Ramesh Latke in May this year.According to the Election Commission trends for Dhamnagar bypolls in Odisha’s Bhadrak district, the BJP candidate Suryabanshi Suraj won with a margin of 9.881 votes over the BJD’s Abanti Das.In the bypoll to the Munugode assembly constituency in Telangana, the ruling TRS candidate K. Prabhakar Reddy won with a margin of 10,309 votes over the BJP’s Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy.BackgroundAdampur in Haryana is the bastion of former chief minister Bhajan Lal. Bhajan Lal’s grandson Bhavya Bishnoi, who contested on a BJP ticket, and RJD’s Neelam Devi, whose husband Anant Singh’s disqualification necessitated the by-election in Bihar’s Mokama, are among the prominent candidates in the fray.For the bypolls in Bihar, the main contest was between the BJP and the RJD, and the saffron party’s main contenders in Haryana are the Congress, INLD and the AAP. The saffron party’s main contestants in Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha are the TRS, SP and the BJD respectively.The outcome of the Andheri (East) bypoll is all but foregone after the BJP withdrew its candidate to ensure that Shiv Sena’s Rutuja Latke gets elected to the constituency that her late husband held. It is the first contest in the state after the recent split in the Shiv Sena following a rebellion by Eknath Shinde, who replaced Uddhav Thackeray as the Maharashtra chief minister.Bypolls in Gola Gokarannath in Uttar Pradesh and Dhamnagar in the BJD-ruled Odisha were held after the death of the MLAs, both of whom were from the BJP.The Gola Gokarannath seat fell vacant after the death of BJP MLA Arvind Giri on September 6. In Dhamnagar, BJP MLA Bishnu Charan Sethi’s death necessitated the by-election. The saffron party has fielded Sethi’s son Suryabanshi Suraj.The BJP and the ruling TRS had been campaigning aggressively in Munugode in Telangana, where the Congress MLA had resigned and is fighting on the saffron party’s ticket.In Adampur, the by-election was necessitated after former chief minister Bhajan Lal’s younger son Kuldeep Bishnoi resigned as MLA from the seat and switched from the Congress to the BJP in August. Bishnoi’s son Bhavya is now contesting as the BJP candidate.The Adampur seat has been held by the Bhajan Lal family since 1968, with the late ex-chief minister representing it on nine occasions, his wife Jasma Devi once, and Kuldeep on four occasions.Bihar saw the first electoral test for the Nitish Kumar-led ‘Mahagathbandhan’ government, formed less than three months ago after the JD(U) parted ways with the BJP.The Mokama and Gopalganj seats in Bihar were earlier held by the RJD and the BJP respectively.The BJP is contesting from the Mokama constituency for the first time as the saffron party had, on previous occasions, left the seat to its allies. Both the BJP and the RJD have fielded the wives of local musclemen in the bypolls.BJP nominee Sonam Devi is up against RJD’s Neelam Devi, whose husband Anant Singh’s disqualification necessitated the by-election.Mokama is the stronghold of Anant Singh since 2005. He won the seat twice on JD(U) tickets and chief minister Nitish Kumar has appealed to voters to support him.In Gopalganj, BJP fielded Kusum Devi, the wife of deceased party MLA Subhash Singh. The RJD fielded Mohan Gupta, while Indira Yadav, wife of Lalu Yadav’s brother-in-law Sadhu Yadav, is contesting as the BSP candidate.(With PTI inputs)
