[Bangla Daily Star] India's ruling Congress, its West Bengal ally Trinamool Congress and also Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) emerged big winners in a string of by-elections to 31 assembly seats and one parliamentary seat spread across seven states.
The biggest losers in the by-elections were India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, Left parties and Samajwadi Party headed by Mulayam Singh Yadav.
As the counting of votes in the by-polls, which were held on November 7, and results of the polls came in by Tuesday evening, it underlined Sonia Gandhi-led Congress party's steady progress towards domination of the country's political stage.
The party won ten out of the 31 assembly seats where by-polls were held and as an icing on the cake it also bagged the Firozabad Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh where its candidate Raj Babbar, filmstar-turned-politician, defeated Dimple Yadav, the daughter-in-law of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, by a huge margin of over 85,000 votes.
The Congress' win came in three seats in Kerala, two in Assam, one each in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
Political analysts said it was the campaigning by Rahul Gandhi, the scion of Nehru-Gandhi family, in Firozabad which turned the tables on Samajwadi Party in the constituency, something acknowledged by Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh after the results were declared Tuesday evening.
Interestingly, Raj Babbar had made "dynastic politics" a major plank in his campaign in Firozabad accusing Mualayam Singh of promoting his family interests in politics.
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