Congress Faces Heavy Defeat In By-Elections

Delhi, 7th November 2022: In the 2022 by-elections, results have been declared for seven seats in six states. However, these results may be worrying for the Congress and the new national president of the party, Mallikarjun Kharge. In the by-election, four seats have come to the account of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), one to Telangana Rashtra Samithi, one to Shiv Sena, and one to Rashtriya Janata Dal. The name of Congress is nowhere on the list of winners. The party had fielded candidates for three seats.

The Congress lost Adampur in Haryana, Dhamnagar in Odisha and Munugode in Telangana. Adampur and Munugode are called Congress strongholds. Both seats were occupied by the Congress, but the equations changed after the party MLAs switched sides to the BJP and the result was that the Congress lost two strongholds at once.

On the one hand, Adampur came on the account of the BJP. At the same time, TRS captured Munugode. The Dhamnagar seat fell vacant due to the death of BJP MLA Vishnu Charan Sethi. Here his son Suryavanshi Soorj waved the flag of victory on a BJP ticket.

Elections for the top post of Congress were held on 17 October. The results were declared on 19 October and Kharge became the chief by defeating Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor. He took office on 26 October. Here, on October 25, the Election Commission of India announced by-elections in seven seats of six states.

Recently, Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi left Telangana with the ‘Bharat Jodo’ Yatra. Even after this, the party had to face defeat in the Munugode seat of the state. Congress, which once won by 37 thousand votes, got forfeited here this time. Palvai Govardhan Reddy, who contested on the party ticket, could not even garner as many votes as he had in 2014 as an independent against TRS candidate Kusukuntal Prabhakar Reddy.

Here, leaving the Congress and joining the BJP, there was a close contest between Komithireddy Rajagopal Reddy, the candidate and the TRS candidate, in which Chief Minister KCR’s party won. The special thing is that before this, less than four thousand votes had come into the account of Congress in the Huzurabad seat.

Three years ago, the Congress won the Adampur seat by more than 29,000 votes. This time Jai Prakash, who entered the fray on a party ticket, came second. Whereas, Bhavya Bishnoi, who landed on a BJP ticket, emerged victorious. His father Kuldeep Bishnoi was an MLA on this seat, but later he joined the BJP and by-elections were held on the seat. Adampur’s seat was occupied by the family of former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal for more than five decades.

There were reports that he had decided to leave the party due to a tussle with the state Congress. Then the party handed over the command of the Haryana Congress to former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda Camp. Later it was also said that Bishnoi did cross-voting during the Rajya Sabha elections, which affected the candidature of Congress leader Ajay Maken.

Now due to Bishnoi’s change of party, this fight was also considered a matter of credibility. According to experts, with this defeat, another major loss to Congress was that the Bishnoi family has done their share of Bhajan Lal’s supporters who were with Congress.

In the by-election held in Odisha’s Dhamnagar seat, the Congress has lost its place, and the party has come to the fourth position. In the 2009 assembly elections, Netanand Malik, who was fielded on a Congress ticket, stood third with 29,833 votes. During that time, Rajendra Kumar Das of Biju Janata Dal had won.

In 2014, Congress Hridanand Sethi finished third with more than 12,000 votes, and BJD continued the winning streak. In 2014, Vidyadhar Jena stood third with 7,274 votes, but during that time Dhamnagar seat came on the account of BJP’s Vishnu Charan Sethi.