BSP romps home as Oppn suffers debacle in UP bypolls

Lucknow, Apr 16 (UNI) Consolidating its hold over Uttar Pradesh, the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) today won all the five byelections held for two Lok Sabha and three Assembly seats on April 12 .

The Azamgarh and Khalilabad Lok Sabha seats were retained by the BSP which wrested the Colonelganj assembly seat from Congress and the Muradnagar assembly seat from an Independent. The Bilgram Assembly seat was retained by the BSP.

BSP's strength in the Assembly rose to 215 in the house of 403.

Congress and BJP candidates have lost their deposits in all the seats except at Colonelganj and at Azamgarh LS seat respectively.

The principal opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate lost its deposit in Muradnagar assembly seat.

In Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat, Akbar Ahmed Dumpy was declared elected after defeating his nearest rival BJP candidate Ramkant Yadav by 54,251 votes. SP candidate Balram Yadav was on the third spot.

Similarly, in Khalilabad LS seat, BSP candidate Bhism Shanker alias Kushal Tiwari defeated SP candidate Bhal Chand Yadav by 64,632 votes. Congress candidate Sanjay Jaiswal, who was on the third spot, was not able to save his deposit.

In Azamgarh and Khalilabad, Ramkant Yadav and Bhal Chand Yadav were the outgoing MPs of the BSP, who were disqualified under 10th Schedule of the Constitution for joining SP during the last assembly elections in the state. However during the bypolls, SP refused to give ticket to Ramkant, who later switched over to BJP at the last moment.

BSP candidate Rajni Tiwari defeated her nearest rival SP candidate Vishram Singh Yadav by 38,168 votes in Bilgram assembly constituency. In Colonelganj, BSP nominee Brij Singh defeated SP candidate Yogesh Pratap Singh by 9,737 votes to wrest the seat from Congress.

In Muradnagar assembly seat, BSP candidate Rajpal Tyagi defeated his nearest Rashtriya Lok Dal rival nominee Ayub Khan by 6,853 votes.

By-elections for Colonelganj and Muradnagar assembly seats were necessitated following the resignation of Congress and Independent MLAs holding the seats, while in Bilgram assembly constituency, the bypoll took place after death of BSP member Upendra Tiwari.

BSP's winning candidate from Muradnagar Rajpal Tyagi was the sitting Independent MLA, who resigned and contested a fresh election on the ruling party ticket.

Similarly, Congress sitting MLA Ajay Pratap Singh alias Lall Bhaiya resigned from the Colonelganj assembly seat and joined the BSP. In the bypolls his brother Brij Singh was given ticket by the BSP from the seat while Ajay is expected to contest the coming Lok Sabha polls.

In Bilgram seat, Rajni Tiwari, widow of BSP MLA Upendra Tiwari, was given the BSP ticket.

UNI MB JAS RP HT1755