The Samajwadi Party has retained the Bilari and Jangipur Assembly seats in the Uttar Pradesh by-elections, results for which were declared on Thursday.
Coming close on the heels of the party’s losses in two out of three recent by-polls in the State, in Bilari and Jangipur, the SP was locked in a two-way fight with the BJP — the main opposition Bahujan Samaj Party did not contest the by-polls.
In Jangipur (Ghazipur), the SP’s candidate Kismati Devi secured a comprehensive win over her nearest rival Ramesh Singh of the BJP, winning by over 22,000 votes. Kismati Devi, the wife of Panchayati Raj Minister Kailash Yadav, who succumbed to a stroke in February, received 82,316 votes, said the Election Commission.
In Bilari (Moradabad), the SP’s Mohammad Faheem had a much harder struggle, as he beat the BJP’s Suresh Saini by a narrow margin of 7,093 votes. Mr. Faheem, the son of Haji Mohammad Irfan, Bilari MLA whose death necessitated the by-poll, improved on his father’s tally of 55,694 in 2012 by securing 90,464 votes.
Mr. Irfan died in an accident on March 10 while he was travelling to Saifai in Etawah to attend the wedding of State cabinet Minister Shivpal Singh Yadav’s son Aditya.
SP spokesperson and Cabinet Minister Rajendra Chaudhary described the victories as the people’s “stamp of faith” in the popularity of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. Mr. Chaudhary predicted that the SP would go on to form a majority government in 2017 while also saying that the results indicated that the people of UP are “fed up of the negative politics” of the Opposition parties. “Only the SP is capable of stopping the communalism of the BJP,” Mr. Chaudhary said.
The BJP, which hopes to make a stake for power in 2017, though having lost both seats, improved its vote count from 2012, when it had stood a distant fourth and third on the Jangipur and Bilari seats, respectively. In the 403-member Assembly Mulayam Singh’s party has a commanding majority of 226 seats, while the BSP has 80.
