BJP loses first Lok Sabha seat, but debuts in Manipur House

The BJP won its first two Assembly seats in Manipur in bypolls, but lost its first Lok Sabha seat after the 2014 general election, its candidate for the Ratlam-Jhabua (ST) Lok Sabha constituency in Madhya Pradesh being defeated by the Congress candidate.

The Congress’ strength in the Lok Sabha rose to 45 with the bypoll victory and the strength of the BJP fell to 281.

In Warangal, the ruling TRS retained the Warangal (SC) Lok Sabha seat. Pasunoori Dayakar won by a massive 4.6 lakh votes, defeating the Congress candidate and the candidate of the BJP-TDP combine. All the bypolls were necessitated either due to seats being vacated or the death of sitting members.

Nirmala Bhuria (BJP) was trounced by former Union minister Kantilal Bhuria of the Congress in Ratlam-Jhabua (ST) seat. In 2014, the BJP had won 27 of the 29 seats in Madhya Pradesh, a landslide. Ms Nirmala Bhuria is the daughter of Dileep Singh Bhuria, whose death necessitated the bypoll; she was defeated by 88,832 votes.

The bypoll was a prestige battle for chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who had addressed 27 rallies in six days in Ratlam and Jhabua. “The wave of BJP’s defeat has started from Jhabua and will spread to the entire state and country,” a jubilant Kantilal Bhuria was quoted by PTI as saying.

However, after the death of sitting MLA Tukoji Rao Puar, the BJP retained Dewas Assembly seat where its candidate, Puar’s wife Gayatri Raje Puar, defeated the Congress’ Jai Prakash Shastri by 30,778 votes.

In the Assembly bypolls in Manipur, the BJP won bypolls in two constituencies, while the Congress and Hill State People’s Democratic Party (HSPDP) won Assembly byelections in Mizoram and Meghalaya respectively.