TMC sweeps Bengal, Lalu's RJD wins Bihar

New Delhi: Five by-polls, for which votes were counted today, saw Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress (TMC) sweeping Bengal while Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) won Bihar. Here are the 10 key points from by-polls from across the country:

1) TMC leader Babul Supriyo won the Ballygunge assembly by-poll in Bengal on Saturday, defeating his nearest rival of the CPI(M), Saira Shah Halim, by a margin of 20,228 votes.

2) RJD in Bihar on Saturday wrested the Bochahan assembly seat from the ruling NDA, with its candidate defeating the BJP nominee by a large margin of over 35,000 votes.

3) RJD candidate Amar Paswan, whose father Musafir Paswan's death had necessitated the by-election, polled 82,116 votes while his nearest BJP rival Baby Kumari got only 45,353. Expelled state minister Mukesh Sahani's Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), on the ticket of which Musafir Paswan had won the seat in 2020, finished a distant third with 29,671 votes.

4) In Asansol Lok Sabha seat, Trinamool nominee and actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha defeated his nearest contestant, BJP's Agnimitra Paul, by a whopping margin of over 2.97 lakh votes. The Asansol parliamentary seat was vacant following Babul Supriyo quitting the BJP to join TMC.

5) "Mamata Banerjee is the country's favourite and popular leader. She will be a game-changer (in 2024 polls) and we will stay with her where she goes including Bihar," said TMC leader Shatrughan Sinha in Asansol, West Bengal. 

6) Mamata Banerjee had earlier in the day taken to Twitter to thank her voters. "I sincerely thank the electors of the Asansol Parliamentary Constituency and the Ballygunge Assembly Constituency for giving decisive mandate to AITC party candidates

7) The ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) supported Congress candidate Jayashree Jadhav swept the Kolhapur North constituency by-election in Maharashtra. She defeated her main rival, Bharatiya Janata Party nominee Satyajit Kadam with a comfortable margin of nearly 18,900 votes in the elections held two days ago.

8) Hailing the victory of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance candidate in the bypoll to Kolhapur North Assembly constituency, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Saturday said the result showed that playing "dirty politics" over the issue of loudspeakers at mosques and recital of Hanuman Chalisa did not work.

9) Sanjay Raut further said, ""Over the years, we have been celebrating Hanuman Jayanti and Ram Navami with religious fervour peacefully. But this time there were communal riots on the day of Ram Navami. This did not happen in the past. There were riots in 10 states on Ram Navami. Creating riots wherever there are elections and winning the polls is the BJP's strategy now."

10) In Chhattisgarh's Khairagarh Assembly bypoll, the ruling Congress' Yashoda Nilamber Verma is ahead. The by-poll was necessitated due to the death of Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J) MLA Devvrat Singh.