New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has faced a setback in one Lok Sabha seat and four assembly constituencies, in the by-polls’ results declared on Saturday April 16.
Former union minister and Trinamool Congress candidate Shatrughan Sinha won from Asansol Lok Sabha seat by over 3 lakh votes.
Former minister in the Narendra Modi government and Trinamool Congress candidate Babul Supriyo won from Ballygunge assembly constituency.
Among the Lok Sabha and assembly constituencies where polling was held, only one — Asansol, was won by the BJP in the previous election.
Supriyo won from Asansol Lok Sabha seat twice in 2014 and 2019, and was made the minister of state in the Narendra Modi government.
During the cabinet reshuffle in July last year, Supriyo was dropped from the union council of ministers.
Later, he resigned from BJP and Lok Sabha to join the Trinamool Congress.
Actor-turned-politician, Sinha defeated BJP’s Agnimitra Paul. Sinha had started his political career with the BJP and left the party to join Congress before 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Later, he joined Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress.
Last month, West Bengal chief minister Banerjee announced Sinha as the Trinamool Congress candidate.
The by-polls for Asansol were necessitated after Supriyo resigned to join the Trinamool Congress last year.
Supriyo, fielded from Ballygunge assembly constituency by the Trinamool, defeated BJP’s Keya Ghosh and CPI-M’s Saira Shah Halim.
The Ballygunge assembly by-polls were necessitated after the death of West Bengal minister Subrata Mukherjee.
In the Bochahan assembly constituency, opposition RJD candidate Amar Kumar Paswan defeated BJP’s Baby Kumari by over 36,000 votes.
The Congress won two assembly constituencies, one each in Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra.
Congress candidate Jayshri Chandrakant Jadhav from Kolhapur North in Maharashtra defeated BJP’s Satyajit Kadam by over 19,000 votes.
From Chhattisgarh’s Khairagarh, Congress’ Yashoda Nilamber Verma won.
The BJP which is riding high on its recent assembly polls in four out of five states felt a little setback with the by-polls results.
“Except in Bihar where the party is in power, the results are on expected lines. In Asansol, we lost the seat we won twice… the leadership will review the result in the coming days,” a senior BJP functionary said.
