The Bharatiya Janata Party has won six out of the nine Uttar Pradesh Assembly bypolls held earlier this week on November 20, boosting Yogi Adityanath, whose control over the state was affected after the Lok Sabha debacle. The Rashtriya Lok Dal, which contested the UP bypoll in alliance with the BJP, also managed to bag a seat.
Meanwhile, Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, which contested independently on all nine seats, has managed to win only two seats, in a major setback for the former Chief Minister. The Congress and SP were supposed to contest the bypoll in an alliance, however, after a row over seat-sharing between the two parties, the Congress backed down and extended support to its INDIA bloc ally.
The counting of votes began at 8 AM on Saturday, November 23, amid tight security arrangements, along with the counting of votes for the Maharashtra and Jharkhand Assembly elections.
The six seats won by the Bharatiya Janata Party include: Ghaziabad, Kundarki, Khair, Phulpur, Katehari, and Majhawan. The Samajwadi Party has won the Karhal and Sishamau Assembly seats. The RLD has won the Meerapur seat.
According to the EC, in the by-election held in Ghaziabad, BJP's Sanjeev Sharma defeated his nearest rival SP's Singh Raj Jatav by a margin of 69,351 votes. Sharma got a total of 96,946 votes.
In Khair, BJP's Surender Diler got 1,00,181 votes defeating his rival SP's Charu Kain by a margin of 38,393 votes.
BJP candidate from Phulpur Deepak Patel defeated Samajwadi Party's Md Mujtaba Siddiqui by a margin of 11,305 votes. Patel secured a total of 78,289 votes.
BJP leader Shuchismita Maurya won the Majhawan seat. She bagged 77,737 votes, defeating Samajwadi Party's Jyoti Bind by 4,922 votes. BSP candidate Deepak Tiwari finished third with 34,927 votes, the Election Commission data showed.
Dharmraj Nishad of the BJP won the Katehari Assembly seat in UP's Ambedkar Nagar district by defeating SP's Shobhawati Varma by a margin of 34,514 votes. Nishad won 1,04,091 votes while Varma bagged 69,577 votes. BSP's Amit Verma finished third securing 41,647 votes. Varma is the wife of Samajwadi Party's Lok Sabha MP from Ambedkar Nagar Lalji Verma.
However, the SP managed to retain its Sishamau Assembly seat with its candidate Naseem Solanki winning against her nearest rival by 8,564 votes. Solanki secured 69,714 votes, while the BJP's Suresh Awasthi bagged 61,150. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate Virendra Kumar, who also contested from this seat, secured 1,410 votes.
RLD candidate Mithlesh Pal won the bypoll from Meerapur Assembly, bagging 84,304 votes and defeating her nearest rival Sumbul Rana of the SP by 30,796 votes. Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) candidate Zahid Hussain finished third with 22,661 votes.