oppn parties Bypoll Results Show Surprises In UP And Punjab

News Snippets

  • Supreme Court questions the continuing relevance of two-child norms. The Court observed that falling fertility rates have weakened the population-control rationale behind laws disqualifying people with more than two children from contesting local body elections. It referred the issue to a larger Bench for consideration
  • Supreme Court declines to shift Tirupati laddu case outside Andhra Pradesh. The Court rejected a plea seeking transfer of the trial, despite arguments that political statements by Andhra Pradesh's Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister could affect the fairness of proceedings
  • Supreme Court transfers Azam Khan's fresh ED bail plea to Allahabad High Court. The apex court declined to consider the Samajwadi Party leader's bail request in a fresh Enforcement Directorate case and directed that it be listed before a division Bench of the High Court on November 16
  • Two killed in Delhi building collapse; contractor booked. Two bodies were recovered after a building collapsed in Chawri Bazaar. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said the contractor had been booked and the concerned junior and assistant engineers suspended
  • Uttar Pradesh voter rolls show a 2.4-crore discrepancy. A difference of approximately 2.4 crore names has been reported between the state's panchayat and rural Assembly voter lists. The Election Commission has ordered the two sets of rolls to be matched
  • Gujarat announces 3% dearness allowance hike. The state government announced a three-percentage-point increase in dearness allowance for government employees and pensioners ahead of Diwali
  • Sensex and Nifty post their strongest single-day gains in months. The Sensex surged 2,008.61 points, or 2.60%, to close at 79,310.01, while the Nifty 50 climbed 576 points, or 2.40%, to 24,536.60. Financial and automobile stocks led the rally, supported by falling crude prices and renewed foreign investor buying
  • Maaya Rajeshwaran reaches WTA-level quarter-final. The 17-year-old Indian defeated Poland's Weronika Falkowska 6-4, 6-3, becoming the first Indian woman since Sania Mirza in 2012 to reach a quarter-final at a WTA Tour-level singles event
  • Tanvi Patri reaches Youth Olympics badminton final. The 15-year-old defeated Japan's Yuzuno Watanabe in the semi-final, assuring India of a medal and becoming the first Indian badminton player to reach the girls' singles final at the Youth Olympics
  • India beat Pakistan 3-2 in SAFF Championship. India defeated Pakistan in a closely contested match, having led 3-0 before conceding two late goals. The victory was reported as a significant result for India's second-string side
  • India beat Japan 4-1 to win a record sixth Asian Champions Trophy. India recovered from an early deficit to defeat Japan in the final at Mohali, extending its record as the tournament's most successful men's team
  • The Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre and the Election Commission on a petition challenging Section 16 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, which grants the CEC and Election Commissioners protection from legal proceedings for acts performed in their official duties. The petition argues that such blanket immunity could leave citizens without an effective remedy for alleged wrongdoing by the Commission
  • The Supreme Court told voters whose names were deleted from Delhi's draft electoral rolls not to be apprehensive about seeking re-enrolment through Form 6, after the Election Commission assured it that such applicants would not be prosecuted merely because their names had appeared in earlier rolls
  • Congress leader Rahul Gandhi opened the party's campaign for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections with an Insaaf rally in Sangrur, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's home district, accusing the AAP government of failing to control drugs, gangster violence and corruption. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge outlined six commitments, including a drug-free Punjab, protection of farmers, employment for young people and action against corruption
  • Rahul Gandhi accused the AAP government of running Punjab through a remote control from Delhi and questioned Bhagwant Mann's ability to tackle drug abuse, making personal allegations about the Chief Minister's conduct during their time together in Parliament
Stock markets on fire due to US results, Sensex gains 2008 points to reach its highest level in 8 months
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Bypoll Results Show Surprises In UP And Punjab

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2022-06-27 10:10:44

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack

The results of the bypolls in three parliamentary constituencies in two states and seven assembly constituencies in four states threw up some surprises while other went as per past experience. In the first surprise results, both Rampur and Azamgarh Lok Sabha seats, considered to be Samajwadi Party (SP) strongholds, went the BJP way this time. In another big surprise, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) lost the lone seat it held in the Lok Sabha when its candidate lost the Sangrur seat (held earlier by chief minister Bhagwant Mann) to Simaranjit Singh Mann of Akali Dal (Amritsar). In the assembly bypolls, the BJP retained three seats in Tripura and the Congress won from Agartala, while the YSRCP won in Andhra, the JMM in Jharkhand and AAP in Delhi. The results provided a silver lining to the Congress which won the Agartala seat in Tripura, the first seat it won in the state after 7 years, as it fielded a strong candidate in the popular Sudip Roy Burman who left the BJP to return to the Congress in February 2022. Burman has consistently won in Agartala, earlier as a Congress candidate, then as BJP candidate in 2018 and now again as a Congressman.

For the BJP, the wins in Azamgarh and Rampur were especially good as Akhilesh Yadav and the SP had emerged as a formidable opponent in the state elections held in 2022. Akhilesh Yadav had won from Azamgarh (and Mulayam Singh Yadav before him) and they had retained the seats even when there was a huge wave in BJP's favour in 2014 and 2019. But this time, with weak candidates and effective campaigning by the BJP, the SP ceded ground and the turnaround was huge. Akhilesh Yadav had won by 250000 votes in 2019. Azam Khan had won Rampur with 100000 votes in 2019. To turn such huge margins and historical support for SP in its favour is a huge plus for the BJP. On the other hand, the loss suffered by AAP in Sangrur shows that it does not take much time for the people to turn against any party, also one that it has supported wholeheartedly in the state elections just a few months ago. Equally disturbing is that fact that the controversial Simranjit Singh Mann won from Sangrur. Mann dedicated his win to the separatist leader late Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.