BJP’s 41 out of 59 blitz in by-polls takes its footprint across India

New Delhi, Nov 11 : A T-20 match – that’s how the BJP played it if the bypolls on 59 seats across India whose results came late Tuesday, can be compared to a game of cricket. There were 56 seats that went to polls, scattered around India, from the North-East to Karnataka and the party won 41. That’s a strike rate of nearly 70 per cent.
While the numbers game came from predominantly 3 states — Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat — in the last two states it snatched seats from the Congress.
In Madhya Pradesh, 25 out of 28 seats that went to poll were necessitated after ‘Operation Kamal’ which toppled the Kamal Nath government followed by former Congress legislators joining BJP. The BJP won 19 seats out of 28 here. Interestingly, out of 22 former Congress leaders-turned BJP candidates, 15 emerged victorious. These were basically Congress seats that the BJP snatched in this bypoll.
The BJP won seats, even when the margins are as low as 161 as was the case of Raksha Santram Saronia, who defeated popular Dalit leader Phool Singh Baraiya in Bhander. Although the Gwalior-Chambal region may not have been as spectacular, but overall it had no reason to complain.
In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP was equally victorious where it had a strike rate of more than 85 per cent. Out of 7, it won 6 sets with the remaining going to the Samajwadi Party.
According to the Election Commission, BJP’s Sangeeta Chauhan won from Naugawan Sadat, Usha Sirohi from Bulandshahr, Prem Pal Dhangar from Tundla, Shrikant Katiyar from Bangarmau, Satya Prakash Mani Tripathi from Deoria and Upendra Nath Paswan from Ghatampur. It maintains BJP’s dominance in the state politics, in spite of recent spate of incidents that raised law and order concerns. The victory also strengthened CM Yogi Adityanath’s standing who was at the receiving end of the opposition.