Assembly bypolls: Mukul Sangma's daughter wins Ampati seat

Former Meghalaya chief minister Mukul Sangma's daughter and Congress candidate Miani D Shira on Thursday won the Ampati Assembly bypoll.

The assembly seat had fallen vacant after Mukul Sangma resigned early this year, following his win from Songsak seat in Meghalaya assembly polls.

After the results were announced, the Congress party workers celebrated the win in Ampati.

In the Assembly bypolls held in 10 constituencies of nine states, the ruling Congress also won the Shahkot Assembly by-election after its candidate Hardev Singh Ladi Sherowalia easily defeated rival Akali Dal's Naib Singh Koha.

"It's a humiliating defeat for BJP. We are going to break them mentally in 2019 General Elections. Sukhbir Singh Badal should resign soon," said Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu.

Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party has retained the Tharali Assembly seat in Uttarakhand, with party nominee Munni Devi Shah defeating her Congress rival Jeetram.

Munni Devi Shah is the widow of BJP's Maganlal Shah whose death necessitated the bypoll.

Samajwadi Party (SP) has won the Uttar Pradesh's Noorpur Assembly constituency with the clear margin of 6211 votes.

SP leader Naim Ul Hasan defeated Avani Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by 6211 votes. The bypoll in the Noorpur Assembly seat was necessitated after the death of sitting BJP MLA Lokendra Singh Chouhan. He was a two-time MLA from the seat.

In the two assembly constituency of Jharkhand, where the by-polls were held, the BJP and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) are leading in one-one seats each.

The BJP is leading from Gomia by 7174 votes, while JMM's Seema Devi is ahead by 296 votes from Silli.

In the neighbouring Bihar state, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) won Jokihat assembly seat, which was earlier under Janata Dal (United) (JD-U).

"The number of votes JD-U got, is less than our victory margin. People of Bihar are continuing to avenge the U-turn taken by Nitish Kumar," RJD's Tejashwi Yadav said.

The ruling Trinamool Congress' (TMC) Dulal Chandra Das has won the Maheshtala seat.

Post victory, TMC's Abhishek Banerjee slammed the Centre and said, "BJP has lost only because of the anti-people policies and communal politics. People have spoken in volumes. Till now our candidate is winning here from 62 thousand votes."

In the southern state of Kerala, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has won the Chengannur assembly seat, which fell vacant after the death of the party sitting in January.