BJP, allies win three UP assembly bypolls

Lucknow, May 16: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Friday continued its victory run in Uttar Pradesh when it won two seats in the assembly bypolls. Its alliance partner, Apna Dal, won one seat. Congress took the fourth seat.

BJP's Pankaj Gupta emerged victorious in Unnao Sadar while Vikram Singh of the same party won handsomely in Fatehpur Sadar. R.K. Patil of Apna Dal annexed the Vishwanathganj seat. Congress won the Rampur Khas seat with Aradhna Mishra, daughter of state Congress leader and now Rajya Sabha member Pramod Tiwari, the winner.

The ruling Samajwadi Party won Unnao, Vishwanathganj and Fatehpur seats in the 2012 assembly polls while Rampur Khas was with the Congress. The first three seats fell vacant following the deaths of incumbent legislators while Rampur fell vacant after Tiwari moved to the Rajya Sabha.

BJP wins Shimla bypoll, AIADMK wins TN bypoll

In Shimla in Himachal Pradesh, BJP candidate Narinder Thakur, who rejoined the party on the eve of Lok Sabha polls and was given ticket from Sujanpur Assembly seat today wrested the seat defeating Congress candidate Anita Rana by a slender margin of 538 votes. Thakur, who faced six defeats in the past including one in Lok Sabha polls, won the election riding on the Modi wave. Sujanpur seat was vacated by Independent MLA Rajinder Singh Rana, who joined Congress and contested the Lok Sabha poll from Hamirpur.

AIADMK candidate V N P Venkatraman won the byelection to the Alandur assembly constituency by a margin of 18,708 votes. The contest in the seat was mainly between Venkatraman and DMK's R S Bharathi, who was a four-time chairman of the Alandur municipality.

Venkatraman got 89,295 votes while Bharathi secured 70, 587 votes. The by-poll was necessitated by the resignation of DMDK MLA Panrutty S Ramachandran, who later joined the AIADMK.

Oneindia News

(With PTI inputs)