LUCKNOW/ERODE: Bypolls in UP's Milkipur reserved assembly seat and Erode (East) in Tamil Nadu handed Saturday landslide victories to governing parties BJP and DMK in the two states. BJP reclaimed Milkipur from SP in a political grudge match, while DMK proved too strong for its opponent in Erode (East) - actor-politician Seeman's NTK, a Tamil nationalist organisation.
Delhi Election Results 2025
BJP candidate Chandra Bhanu Paswan defeated SP's Ajit Prasad by 61,710 votes in the bypolls held on Feb 5, necessitated after his father Awadhesh Prasad vacated the seat upon his election to LS from Faizabad in Ayodhya district in 2024.
The victory served as BJP's response to its shock defeat in Faizabad within a few months of PM Modi inaugurating the Ram temple in Ayodhya. In 2022 UP elections, BJP had won four of the five seats within Faizabad LS constituency, of which Milkipur is an assembly segment.
In Erode (East), DMK's VC Chandhirakumar won with a margin of 91,374 votes, securing 74% of the vote share and providing a happy tonic to CM MK Stalin's party before next year's assembly elections. AIADMK, BJP, and allies stayed away from the bypolls.
NTK's MK Seethalakshmi polled 24,151 votes (15.5%), while NOTA came third with 6,101 votes - among the highest in a TN assembly election. There were 44 other candidates, most of them independents.
BJP's third win in Milkipur after 1991 and 2017 reaffirmed CM Yogi Adityanath's position as the party's key electoral strategist in UP, underscoring his ability to mobilise Dalit, OBC, and upper-caste voters. Party's Hindutva-driven messaging proved effective in countering SP's "Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak" (PDA) strategy.
Yogi framed the win as a reaffirmation of public trust in the party's "double-engine" governance - Modi at Centre and a committed UP govt.
Voters had supported Yogi in seven out of nine seats where bypolls were held. In Milkipur, the tenth seat, people responded to his appeal, political experts said. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav dismissed the result as a "false victory". He said BJP's LS defeat in Ayodhya "is many times heavier" than the Milkipur win.
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