Lucknow : The ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh Tuesday won four Assembly seats in the bypolls and was leading in four.
The SP has won from Sirathu, Hamirpur, Bijnore and Charkhari assembly constituencies.
The SP has also made an unassailable lead of over two lakh votes in Mainpuri Lok Sabha constituency from where Tej Pratap Singh, grand-nephew of party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, is the party candidate.
Buoyed by the performance of the party, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said he was happy that the people of the state have reposed faith in SP and given a thumbs down to the “communal” politics of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“We are happy and thankful that people have preferred development and prosperity over false hopes and communal politics that BJP practised,” he said, he told media persons after chairing a cabinet meeting.
Yadav said the party leadership was thankful to the voters for electing SP candidates.
The BJP, which had won all the 11 seats in the 2012 state assembly elections, tripped down to just three as counting progressed. The party won the Saharanpur (City) state assembly seat while its candidates were leading convincingly in Lucknow (East) and Noida seats.
Laxmikant Bajpayi, state president of the BJP, said the poll results called for some serious “collective introspection” and added that the party leadership will try and figure out what went wrong as they lost as many as eight of the seats it held.