CM Yogi's midas touch: BJP retains 6 UP seats in bypolls

The ruling BJP came out with a convincing win as it retained six of the seven seats in bypolls on Tuesday. CM Yogi Adityanath said the exceptional performance of the BJP in the bypolls give a "clear indication" of the party's chances in the upcoming 2022 state Assembly elections.

Speaking to reporters, the Chief Minister said, "The BJP has repeated its poll performance of the 2017 Assembly polls and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. These are clear indications that the party will perform well again in the upcoming 2022 Assembly elections. I thank the people for coming forward to vote."

BJP candidate Sangeeta Chauhan won in Naugawan Sadat, Usha Sirohi in Bulandshahr, Prem Pal Dhangar in Tundla, Shrikant Katiyar in Bangarmau, Satya Prakash Mani Tripathi in Deoria and Upendra Nath Paswan in Ghatampur, according to the Election Commission.      

Samajwadi Party's Lucky Yadav won Malhani, the seat which was represented by his father Parasnath Yadav, whose death necessitated the by-election.

He defeated independent candidate Dhananjay Singh by 4,632 votes.     

A tough see-saw battle was fought for the Naugawan Sadat seat held earlier by Chetan Chauhan, the former cricketer who was a minister in Yogi Adityanath's BJP government.   

SP's Javed Abbas, who was trailing in the morning pushed his BJP rival, Chetan Chauhan's wife Sangeeta Chauhan, to the second spot by 3,314 votes for a while.

The BJP candidate at one point had a slim 175-vote lead, but later cruised ahead to win by 15,077 votes.

BJP candidate Satyaprakash Mani Tripathi won Deoria, defeating SP's Brahma Shankar Tripathi by 20,089 votes.

Unnao's Bangermau seat also went to the ruling party with Shrikant Katiyar defeating Congress candidate Arti Bajpai by 31,398 votes.

In Bulandshahr, BJP's Usha Sirohi defeated Bahujan Samaj Party's Mohammad Yunus by 21,702 votes. Her party colleague Upendra Nath Paswan won against Congress candidate Kripa Shankar by 23,820 votes in Ghatampur.

BJP's Prempal Singh Dhangar defeated SP's Mahraj Singh Dhangar by 17,683 votes in Tundla.     

The bypolls for the seven UP seats recorded a voter turnout of 53 per cent on November 3, with 88 candidates in the fray.    

The Naugawan Sadat seat fell vacant after the death of Minister Chetan Chauhan, who succumbed to COVID-19.

The Ghatampur constituency in Kanpur Nagar district was held by another minister, Kamal Rani Varun, who too died of the same cause.   

The Tundla seat fell vacant after its MLA S P Singh Baghel was elected to the Lok Sabha.

The Bangarmau seat in Unnao was vacated by BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar after his conviction in a rape case.    

The bypolls to the Bulandshahr and Deoria seats were necessitated by the deaths of BJP MLAs Virendra Singh Sirohi and Janmejay Singh.    

Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad's Azad Samaj Party had fielded Mohammad Yameen from Bulandshahr to test its electoral popularity.    

The Bulandshahr seat had the highest number of 18 candidates while Ghatampur seat had the lowest of six.   

Sixteen candidates were in the fray in Malhani, 14 each in Naugawan Sadat and Deoria and 10 each in Bangarmau and Tundla.    

With the BJP and the SP retaining their seats, the 403-member assembly will now again have 310 MLAs from the BJP and 49 from the SP.   

The House also has 18 members from the BSP, nine from Apna Dal (Sonelal), seven from Congress, four from Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party and five MLAs who are independents or belong to smaller parties.   

The Allahabad High Court had asked the Election Commission to also hold bypolls in Suar after annulling the election of Abdullah Azam Khan, son of SP MP Mohammad Azam Khan, ruling that he was underage.    

But the Supreme Court recently stayed its directions.

Meanwhile, elated over the results, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said under the leadership and guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and completely set aside all speculations in Bihar, the public has proved that "Modi hai to mumkin" (if there is Modi, then it is possible).

Yogi said that the BJP has repeated its electoral performance of 2017.

"The BJP in this bypolls has given hints about the future polls," he said, adding the results are a proof of people's faith in welfare programmes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav alleged the misuse of official machinery and irregularities in the elections.

“The BJP keeps conspiring to win elections but the Samajwadi Party will now start a campaign taking all sections of society along to save democracy," the SP chief said, calling for transparency in polls. 

(With inputs from agencies)