The Uttar Pradesh and Bihar byelections results have come as a major shock to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance. In Bihar Rashtriya Janata Party (RJD) retained the Jehanabad Assembly constituency by defeating its nearest rival the Janata Dal United (JDU). RJD candidate Kumar Krishna Mohan alias Suday Yadav won the Jehanabad Assembly byelection by 35,036 votes against his nearest rival and JDU candidate Abhiram Sharma. Kumar Krishna Mohan is the son of late RJD leader Mundrika Yadav, who had won the seat in the 2015 Bihar Assembly elections. Rinki Rani Pandey of the BJP won from Bhabua Assembly seat in Bihar defeating Congress candidate Shambhu Singh Patel by almost 15,000 votes.


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In Uttar Pradesh where bypolls were held for Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha seats, the BJP is trailing the Samajwadi Party by a huge margin in both the seats.


BJP has won Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat since the 1991 elections and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has been representing the same since 1998. He had won by over 3 lakh votes in the 2014 Lok Sabha but vacated the seat after BJP’s landslide win in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections and his elevation as the chief minister of the state.


But after 16 rounds of counting in bypolls, it was the Samajwadi Party candidate Pravin Kumar Nishad who had taken a lead by 24,529 votes against BJP’s Upendra Dutt Shukla. Samajwadi Party is being backed by the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party in the bypolls.


Phulpur Lok Sabha seat, which had sent Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya to the 16th Lok Sabha, is going with the Samajwadi Party. Its candidate Nagendra Pratap Singh Patel is ahead of his nearest rival and BJP candidate by almost 30,000 votes after 17 rounds of counting.


List of candidates in Gorakhpur:


BJP: Upendra Dutt Shukla


Samajwadi Party: Pravin Kumar Nishad


Congress: Dr Surheeta Kareem
Bahujan Mukti Party: Awadhesh Nishad
Sarvodaya Bharat Party: Girish Narain Pande
Independent: Narendra Kumar Mahanta, Malti Devi, Radheshyam Sehra, Vihay Kumar Rai, Sarvan Kumar Nishad


List of candidates in Phulpur: 


BJP: Kaushalendra Singh Patel
Samajwadi Party: Nagendra Pratap Singh Patel
Congress: Manish Mishra
Bahujan Mukti Party: Kanhaiya Lal
Ambedkar Yug Party: Kamala Prasad
Rashtriya Bandhutwa Party: Ganeshji Tripathi
National Democratic Peoples Front: DD Gupta
Parivartan Samaj Party: Patrakar Rais Ahmad Khan
Lohia Sanyukta Samajwadi Party: Ramesh Kumar
Pragatisheel Samaj Party: Varun Dev Pal
Bhartiya Kamgar Party: Shamsher Bahadur Patel
Bhartiya Sangam Party: Sudha Patel
Bharatiya Kisan Sena Loktantrik: Suresh Chandra Upadhyay
Independent: Atiq Ahmad, Ashok Kumar, Dr Neeraj, Dr Ramesh Prakash Verma, Rajendra Prasad, Rajesh Yadav, Ram Manohar Singh, Sarvesh, Hasan Akhilak URF Rizwan Neenva


This is the first electoral battle in Bihar since Chief Minister and JDU supremo Nitish Kumar walked out of the grand alliance with Lalu Prasad's RJD and Congress, and joined hands with BJP-led NDA in 2017. 


This is also the first time that elections were held in Bihar under the guidance of Tejashwi Yadav since his father and RJD chief Lalu Yadav is lodged in jail in connection with the fodder scam.


List of candidates in Araria:


BJP: Pradeep Kumar Singh
RJD: Sarfaraz Alam
Rashtriya Jansambhavna Party: Upendra Sahani
Jan Adhikar Party (Loktantrik): Prince Victor
Independents: Binit Prakash, Maheshwar Rishi, Sudama Singh


The main contest in Araria is mainly between RJD's Sarafaraz Alam, Taslimuddin's son, and BJP's Pradip Singh, who had won the seat in 2009 and finished runner-up in 2014.


Bhabua:


Winner - BJP: Rinki Rani Pandey


Jehanabad:


Winner - RJD: Kumar Krishna Mohan alias Suday Yadav


While the BJP capitalised on the sympathy wave in Bhabua and fielded Rinki, the wife of late party MLA Anand Bhushan Pandey, whose death at the age of 48, necessitated the bypoll, RJD did the same in Jehanabad.