The RLD-SP alliance, supported by the BSP and the Congress, got a thumping victory in Kairana Lok Sabha and Noorpur assembly seats of Western UP in the byelection, defeating the candidates of ruling BJP. The seats went to polls on 28 May and the results came out on Thursday.

RLD candidate Tabassum Hasan defeated Mriganka Singh of BJP by a margin of about 44,618 votes to wrest the Kairana LS seat. On the other hand, Samajwadi Party candidate Naemul Hasan defeated his nearest rival Avni Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by a margin of 5,678 votes to win the Noorpur Assembly seat in Bijnor district.

The byelection result has come as a major setback to the BJP, which also lost the bypolls to Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha seats in March. The ruling party failed to woo the voters in spite of the vigorous campaigning by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath , Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya and other senior leaders.

On the other hand, SP, RLD, BSP and Congress put up a strong show once again as a united opposition. This newly evolved formula that seems to have worked in the state in the bypolls gives a strong hope to the opposition parties ahead of the 2019 Parliamentary elections.

RLD candidate Tabassum Hasan was leading right from the beginning of the counting on Thursday. She maintained her lead round after round and finally emerged winner with a comfortable margin of 44,618 votes. Tabassum got 4,81,182 votes while Mriganka managed to poll 4,36,564 votes.

In Noorpur too, SP candidate Naemul Hasan maintained his lead throughout the counting and finished with a victory margin of 5,678 votes. Naemul polled 94,866 votes while Avni was restricted to 89,188 votes.

Avni Singh is the wife of BJP MLA Lokendra Singh who recently died in a car accident. The party fielded his widow from the seat eyeing sympathy votes, but that did not work.

Naresh Uttam Patel, the state president of Samajwadi Party, expressed happiness over the results in Noorpur and Kairana and asserted that it was an indication for the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

In her statement to the media after winning Kairana, Tabassum Hasan thanked RLD leaders and workers, the alliance parties and the people of her constituency for working hard braving the scorching summer, which ensured her victory. She asserted that Kairana would infuse a fresh vigour in the alliance, which would change the dimension and direction of politics in 2019. “We will contest united and win again,” she said.  Tabassum also charged the BJP with raising issues like that of Jinnah unnecessarily and said she would try to end the bitterness among people.

Mriganka was graceful in defeat as she accepted that the alliance proved stronger. She said perhaps they failed to effectively take the work done by the party to the people though the partymen had worked hard.

“I am feeling bad that I have disappointed them,” said Mriganka.

Mriganka is the daughter of BJP MP Kairana Hukum Singh whose death in February necessitated this bypoll. In 2014, Hukum Singh had won the Lok Sabha seat of Kairana by a record margin of over 2 lakh votes. He had polled 5.65 lakh votes and defeated Nahid Hasan of SP, who is son of Tabassum and late MP Munnawar Hasan. Nahid later defeated Mriganka in the assembly election from Kairana in 2017. Hukum Singh had raised the issues of Hindus’ exodus but failed to secure a win for his daughter.

RLD had won the Kairana Lok Sabha seat in 1999 (Anuradha Chaudhary) and 2004 (Ameer Alam). In 2014, its candidate Kartar Singh Bhadana has finished fourth. The fierce riots of Muzzaffarnagar had disturbed the winning equation of Muslims, Jats and farmers, which had worked for the party in the past. Even Jats had distanced themselves from the RLD. But party chief Ajit Singh and son Jayant Chaudhary worked hard in this election and tried to revive the harmony in the area and woo back their votebank. They raised the issues of sugar farmers, which worked for them this time.

“Ganna (sugarcane) has worked in this election and not Jinnah (Mohammed Ali Jinnah),” RLD vice president Jayant Chaudhary said after the verdict. Congratulating the alliance for the win, Jayant said people had rejected the politics of “hatred, riots, love jihad etc”. He said the party had been fighting for farmers and would continue to do so. “RLD is sure to play an important role in the alliance,” he added.