In a major embarrassment to the Congress and giving a major boost to Narendra Modi’s prime ministerial race, the BJP today swept the six by-elections to the Lok Sabha and Assembly seats in Gujarat, while his detractor Nitish Kumar of JDU suffered a blow in Bihar, and the Congress drew a blank in four states. Wresting all the six seats from the Congress in Gujarat, including the two Lokh Sabha seats of Porbandar and Banaskantha, the BJP won these seats with huge margins.

 

Interestingly, the BJP candidate Vithhal Radadia, who defected from the Congress after a controversy last year when he brandished a gun at a toll booth, won the Porbandar Lok Sabha seat.  Banaskantha went to Haribhai Chaudhry of BJP. The bye election results came as a boost to Modi in the race for prime ministership in BJP, whose national executive will be meeting in Goa this weekend when he may be made the head of the party's campaign committee for the next year's general elections.

 

The defeat of ruling JD-U in Bihar was a major victory for RJD chief Lalu Prasad, whose party won the Lok Sabha by-elections from the  Maharajganj seat with a margin of over 1.37 lakh votes.Maharajganj, held by RJD in the 2009 polls, was now secured by RJD's Prabhunath Singh who polled over 3.81 lakh votes.

 

In the lone Lok Sabha by-election in Howrah in Bengal, the ruling Trinamool retained the seat with a slim margin against the nearest CPM rival nudging the Congress to the third spot.