M A I N   N E W S

BJP suffers reverses in Gujarat

New Delhi, September 22
The BJP today suffered reverses losing the Sabarmati Assembly seat in Gujarat as it romped home in Tonk Lok Sabha constituency in Rajasthan while the Congress retained Sabarkantha parliamentary seat and bagged four Assembly seats in Thursday’s bypoll spread over seven states.

Of the remaining five Assembly seats where byelections were held, the NCP bagged two and the BJP, the TDP and a newly-floated Telangana Rashtra Samithi one each.

Congress candidate Narhari Amin wrested the Sabarmati Assembly seat from the BJP defeating saffron party’s Babubhai Patel by 18,470 votes.

The Congress retained the Sabarkantha Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat when its candidate Madhusudan Mistry humbled BJP’s Upendra Trivedi by over 20,000 votes.

In the Tonk (SC) Lok Sabha bypoll, BJP’s Kailash Meghwal trounced his Congress rival and state Social Welfare Minister Banwari Lal Bairwa by over 61,000 votes.

The ruling Telugu Desam in Andhra Pradesh suffered a setback when TRS nominee and former Deputy Speaker K. Chandrasekhar Rao, fighting on the plank of a separate state, won the Siddipet Assembly seat routing TDP’s M. Srinivas Reddy by 58,700 votes.

The TDP, however, retained the Vuyyur Assembly seat with its candidate A. Vijayalakshmi defeating Congress’ K. Parthasarathi by 13,000 votes.

The Congress swept the bypoll in Assam with Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi and Kalyan Gogoi pocketing both Titabor and Dibrugarh Assembly seats.

The Chief Minister defeated AGP’s Hemanta Kalita by 45, 244 votes while Kalyan Gogoi humbled BJP’s Ajit Chalia by 25,961 votes in a nine-cornered contest.

The Chief Minister’s brother Dip Gogoi vacated the Titabor seat in favour of his elder sibling who did not contest the May election.

The ruling Biju Janata Dal retained the Rairakhol (SC) Assembly seat in Orissa when its candidate Sanatan Bisi, a former Rajya Sabha member, defeated his nearest Congress rival Ashok Kumar Beriha by 14,581 votes.

This is the first Assembly bypoll held in Orissa after the BJD-BJP alliance came to power 18 months ago. PTI