BJP wins 4 key bypolls; TRS secures T'gana seat

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won four of seven assembly constituencies across six states as results of recently held bypolls were declared on Sunday, even as the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) secured a seat after a close fight with the BJP.

The results of the bypolls, held on November 3, reinforced the BJP's strength in the Hindi heartland as it retained three seats, while the Uddhav Thackeray-led faction of the Shiv Sena also bagged one seat. The Congress appeared to continue its downslide, losing two seats earlier held by the party.

The ruling TRS wrested the Munugode assembly seat from the Congress. TRS candidate Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy defeated the BJP's Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy by a margin of about 10,000 votes in the keenly fought contest.

Rajagopal Reddy, the sitting MLA, had resigned from the state assembly after joining the BJP following his exit from the Congress.

The BJP said the results of the November 3 by-elections were 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.

Congress candidate Palwai Sravanthi, daughter of former minister late Palwai Govardhan Reddy, who represented the Munugode constituency five times in the past, got 23,906 votes (10.06%) and lost her deposit.