BJP grabs two key seat from SP in Uttar Pradesh by polls

|HT|

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday grabbed two keys seats from the Samajwadi Party (SP) in the by-elections held in Azamgarh and Rampur. In Azamgarh, an SP bastion, BJP candidate Dinesh Lal Yadav 'Nirahua' won against his nearest rival, Dharmendra Yadav of the Akhilesh Yadav-led party, 8,679 votes..

BJP's Ghyanshyam Singh Lodhi wrested the Rampur seat from the SP by defeating Mohd Asim Raja with a margin of more than 42,000 votes. Raja was handpicked by SP leader Azam Khan.

Counting for the bypolls started on Sunday morning. Soon after, chief minister Yogi Adityanath shared a tweet calling the polls outcome a “historic win”. “The historic victory in the Azamgarh Sadar Lok Sabha seat in the by-election is the result of the public welfare policies of the 'double engine BJP government' under the leadership of the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi). This victory is dedicated to all the hardworking supporters of the BJP. I thank the people of Azamgarh,” read his tweet, loosely translated from Hindi.

The by-election to the Azamgarh seat was necessitated due to the resignation of the Samajwadi Party chief, who was elected to the Assembly in the election held earlier this year.

Soon after the trends became clear, Nirahua tweeted saying he is leaving for his constituency and would serve Azamgarh well.

The four assembly constituencies – Azamgarh, Mubarakpur, Sagdi, Gopalpur and Mehnagar – falling under this Lok Sabha seat were won by the SP in the recent Assembly elections.Earlier, Yogi shared a similar tweet for the saffrom camp's win in Rampur. Double-engine BJP government is a term used frequently by the saffron camp to denote its rule at the Centre and state. SP candidate Asim Raja was handpicked by Azam Khan.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)