Bypolls in six states: BJP wins in 4 of 7 Assembly seats; loses to TRS

RJD, Shiv Sena (Uddhav) win one each

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won in four of seven Assembly constituencies in six states, retaining the three seats it held, in the by-election results declared on Sunday, while the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (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.

It was the only seat where the Congress was in some reckoning. The party lost Adampur (Haryana) and Munugode (Telangana), where its MLAs had resigned and joined the BJP.

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 government.