Ruling parties won assembly by-elections in three states, results of which were announced yesterday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party won two seats in Goa, the Aam Aadmi Party retained Bawana in Delhi and the Telugu Desasm Party snatched the Nandyal seat from YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh.
Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar won the Panaji seat by a margin of 4,803 votes, against his victory margin of 6,068 in the 2012 assembly elections.
State Health Minister Vishwajit Rane, who resigned as a Congress MLA to join the BJP in Goa, increased his victory margin in Valpoi seat to 10,066 votes from 4,066 in the February elections.
Parrikar, a former defence minister, was sent back to Goa by the BJP leadership to lead the state government after a split verdict in the state.
Parrikar won the Panaji seat for the sixth time. He got 9,862 votes compared while his rivals Girish Chodankar of the Congress got 5,059 votes and Anand Shirodkar of the Goa Suraksha Manch came a distant third with 220.
In Valpoi, Rane got 16,167 votes against his Congress rival Roy Naik’s 6,101.
“I was expecting to win,” Parrikar told reporters after the victory. He said he would resign his Rajya Sabha seat shortly.
Chodankar said he might have lost but was touched by the manner in which Panaji voters interacted with him.
In Delhi, the ruling AAP retained the Bawana seat, one of 12 reserved seats in the 70-member assembly, by over 24,000 votes. AAP candidate Ram Chandra defeated former party legislator Ved Prakash, who has since joined the BJP after resigning his assembly membership.
Though the party’s victory margin was less than in 2015, the victory came as a boost to the AAP after its losses in the Rajouri assembly by-election and municipal elections. The Congress finished third but put up a credible performance.
Andhra Pradesh’s ruling TDP snatched the Nandyal seat by a huge margin.
TDP’s Bhuma Brahmananda Reddy defeated his nearest rival Silpa Mohan Reddy of YSR Congress Party by over 27,000 votes. The TDP candidate polled 97,076 votes while Silpa Mohan secured 69,610 votes. The Congress finished far behind with just 1,382 votes.
In what was considered a prestige battle for both parties, Brahmananda Reddy took the lead from the very first round of counting. Except in the 16th round, the TDP candidate maintained a lead till the completion of counting in 19 rounds.
About 80% of the 216,000 voters had cast their votes in the by-election held on August 23.