Assembly bypoll results 2018: Shock defeat for BJP; victory for Samajwadi Party, RJD in UP and Bihar

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NEW DELHI: Ahead of next year's general elections, a united opposition got a major boost on Thursday when it delivered a huge blow to the BJP, defeating it in the Kairana Lok Sabha by-election in Uttar Pradesh and Bhandara-Gondiya in Maharashtra while the saffron party managed to retain the Palghar parliamentary seat and win only one out of the 10 Assembly seats in 10 states.

Of the 10 assembly seats where by-polls were held last Thursday, the BJP scored just one in Uttarakhand's Tharali while the Congress won Punjab's Shahkot, Karnataka's RR Nagar and Meghalaya's Ampati that made it the single largest party in the northeastern state. The Trinamool Congress won the Maheshtala seat in West Bengal while the CPI-M candidate defeated a Congress rival in Kerala's Chengannur.

Jailed politician Lalu Prasad's RJD defeated the ruling BJP and JDU's joint candidate in Bihar's Jokihat assembly seat where it was more of a battle of prestige for the former allies - the RJD and the JDU. RJD's Shahnawaz Alam beat the JDU candidate by over 41,000 votes. 

Lalu Prasad's son Tejashwi Yadav, a former Deputy Chief Minister, said the loss was a lesson for Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who broke away from the anti-BJP grand alliance and joined hands with the BJP in Bihar.

The Jokihat assembly seat was left vacant after the sitting JDU lawmaker quit the party and joined the RJD following Nitish Kumar's decision to go with the BJP last year.

The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha bagged both the Assembly seats of Silli and Gomia in the state. 

While the BJP had to bite the dust, opposition parties like Congress, Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha pulled off surprise victories against the mighty BJP.

Amid a tight layer of security, the counting of votes for bypolls to 10 crucial Legislative Assembly constituencies began at 8 am on Thursday. 

The 10 Assembly seats where bypolls were recently held are – Punjab's Shahkot, Uttarakhand's Tharali, Meghalaya's Ampati, Kerala's Chengannur, Bihar's Jokihat, Jharkhand's Gomia and Silli, West Bengal's Maheshtala, Uttar Pradesh's Noorpur and Maharashtra's Palus Kadegaon, and one in Karnataka's RR Nagar seat

The results of these high stake assembly constituencies are being seen as a mandate against the Narendra Modi-led BJP and the Rahul Gandhi-led Congress ahead of general elections in 2019. 

The BJP along with its allies had swept 73 out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 general elections and won an overwhelming 312 seats out of a total 423 in the state assembly elections last year.

With agency inputs

31 May 2018

18:57 IST

TMC registers strong win from Maheshtala in West Bengal.

16:42 IST

RJD's Tejashwi Yadav says Nitish Kumar and JDU have been punished by people for recent policies. (Read full report here)