International Desk

India’s opposition alliance INDIA, led by Congress, won 10 out of 13 seats, in the first by-polls since the general elections, while the ruling BJP managed to grab only two seats, as per Election Commission figures published Saturday.

An independent candidate won the remaining one seat in Bihar defeating a rival from the BJP-led bloc.

On 10 July, the by-polls were held to India's seven provincial assemblies: Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Uttrarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal.

In West Bengal, INDIA bloc’s Trinamool Congress swept all four seats contested, defeating a BJP rival in three of the four seas.

Individually Congress won four seats, defeating BJP rivals in two of the seats. Notably, BJP and Congress are India's biggest and second-biggest political parties respectively.

Rising opposition party Aam Admi Party (AAP) also won over a BJJP rival in a Punjab seat. The party’s chief Arvind Kejriwal, also the chief minister of New Delhi, is now behind bars in a corruption case filed shortly before the April general elections to undermine his and the party’s election prospects.

Kejriwal’s continued incarceration in the controversial case made the AAP’s latest win all the more significant.

AAP now holds 91 seats in the 117-seat Punjab provincial assembly.

Notably, the BJP candidate defeated in the by-polls in Punjab was a former AAP member and lawmaker named Sheetal Angural, who had defected in March days ahead of the general polls.

A similar incident occurred in the seat of Uttarakhand state, where Congress leader Lakhpat Singh Butola defeated a former member of the same party. The defeated Rajendra Singh Bhandari had defected to BJP.

Sources: NDTV, Business Standard (India)