Assembly by-polls: BJP wins three; RJD, Uddhav's Shiv Sena, TRS bag one each

The BJP won in four out of seven assembly constituencies in six states, retaining the three seats it held, in the by-election results declared on Sunday, while the TRS and RJD won one each after a stiff contest with the saffron party.

Rutuja Latke, the candidate of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), won the by-election to Andheri (East) in Mumbai, the seat earlier represented by her deceased husband, after major parties including the BJP did not field candidates.

The second-highest number of votes (14.79 per cent) went to the None Of The Above (NOTA) option in the constituency.

The BJP said the result of the November 3 by-election was a stamp of approval by people on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's policies as it retained Gola Gokarannath in Uttar Pradesh, Dhamnagar in Odisha and Gopalganj in Bihar where it had fielded the kin of its party MLAs whose death necessitated the polls.

BJP candidate and former chief minister Bhajan Lal's grandson Bhavya Bishnoi defeated his nearest rival and Congress nominee Jai Prakash in Haryana's Adampur by a margin of around 16,000 votes, maintaining the family's winning streak.

Candidates of AAP and INLD lost their deposits as they failed to secure one-sixth of the votes polled.

The resignation of Bhavya's father Kuldeep Bishnoi necessitated the by-election after he left the Congress and joined the BJP.

The Adampur seat has been held by the Bhajan Lal's family since 1968, with the late leader representing it on nine occasions, his wife Jasma Devi once and Kuldeep on four occasions.

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TRS candidate Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy defeated his nearest BJP rival Komatireddy Raj Gopal Reddy in Manugode.

In Bihar, the RJD saw its victory margin fall in Mokama and it fell short of a win in party president Lalu Prasad's home district of Gopalganj, which the BJP retained, albeit by the skin of its teeth.

It was the first electoral test for the Nitish Kumar-led 'Mahagathbandhan' (RJD-JDU-Congress) government, formed less than three months ago after the JD(U) parted ways with the BJP.

RJD candidate Neelam Devi won in Mokama by more than 16,000 votes. The by-poll was necessitated after the disqualification of her husband MLA Anant Kumar Singh.

The BJP contested from the constituency for the first time as the saffron party had, on previous occasions, left the seat to its allies.

BJP's Kusum Devi, the wife of MLA Subhash Singh whose death had necessitated the by-election in Gopalganj, polled 70,032 votes, while RJD's Mohan Gupta got 68,243.

BJP chief JP Nadda said the victory in Gola Gokarannath and Adampur reflects the public support for the double-engine BJP governments.

BJP's Aman Giri defeated his nearest rival and Samajwadi Party candidate by over 34,000 votes in the Gola Gokarannath seat that fell vacant after the death of his father and party MLA Arvind Giri on September 6.

Aman Giri won by a margin of 34,298 votes. He received 1,24,810 votes and Vinay Tiwari got 90,512 votes.

With the BSP and the Congress keeping away, it was a direct contest between Aman Giri and Tiwari. The BJP's campaign was led by CM Adityanath, while SP chief Akhilesh Yadav did not campaign.

Yadav on Sunday accused the BJP government of using illegal means in the election and said it had defeated democracy in the assembly seat. By securing 90,000 votes, the SP candidate has challenged the BJP, he claimed.

Gola Gokarannath is part of Union MoS (home) Ajay Mishra Teni's Lok Sabha constituency Lakhimpur Kheri.

In Odisha's Dhamnagar, BJP's Suryabanshi Suraj defeated ruling BJD's Abanti Das by a margin of 9,881 votes.

The bypoll was necessitated by the death of Suraj's father and BJP MLA Bishnu Charan Sethi in September.

(With news agencies' inputs)