New Delhi: With the BJP losing the prestigious Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha bypolls in Uttar Pradesh, its tally in the Lower House of Parliament has come down to 274, down from 282 that it had won in 2014. Since coming to power in 2014, the ruling party has lost six seats in bypolls. Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan’s Indore parliamentary seat is not counted in the BJP’s tally and the Election Commission is yet to declare a date for Kairana bypoll, where party’s sitting MP Hukum Singh passed away in February. However, the party still is in a majority on its own in the Lower House of Parliament, whose total strength is 543. With today’s bypoll win, Samajwadi Party’s strength has also increased to seven from five.
In January, the BJP lost Rajasthan’s Ajmer and Alwar Lok Sabha seats to the Congress in bypolls in the state where it had won all the 25 seats in the last elections. Congress tally is curently at 48. Last year, BJP MP Nana Patole quit the party and resigned from the Lok Sabha seat while it also lost the prestigious Gurdaspur seat to Congress in the bypoll which was necessitated due to the death of party MP and actor-turned-politician Vinod Khanna.
Six Lok Sabha bypolls have been held this year and the BJP has failed to win a single seat across four states — Rajasthan, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
