The BJP managed to retain only one seat-Palghar, Maharashtra-after the bypolls held on May 28, 2018, where the party called in Yogi Adityanath for campaigning.
With the loss of Kairana, Uttar Pradesh and Bhandara-Gondiya, Maharashtra, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) now has 271 seats in the Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament), down 11 from the 282 seats it won in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections .
The BJP managed to retain
only one seat–Palghar, Maharashtra–after the bypolls held on May
28, 2018, where the party called in Yogi Adityanath for campaigning.
While the BJP lost the
Kairana seat to Rashtriya Lok Dal, it lost the Bhandara-Gondiya seat
to the Nationalist Congress Party.
With its tally down to 271
in Lok Sabha after bypoll losses, BJP as a party has lost simple
majority, which is 272 seats. NDA, including BJP and allies, still
has majority with 315 out of 543 seats.
Since March 11, 2018,
bypolls were held for seven Lok Sabha constituencies and 11 state
assembly constituencies across the country. The voting for all the
state assemblies were held on May 28, 2018 and the result was
announced on May 31, 2018.
The BJP
did not win any seats in the Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha
bypolls held earlier on March 11 and March 14, 2018, thus losing the
seats of Gorakhpur and Phulpur held by chief minister Yogi Adityanath
and deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, respectively.
So, in UP, where the party
had won 71 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2014, the BJP is now left
with 68 seats.
The reason being
highlighted for the poll results by the opposition in Uttar Pradesh
is the farmer distress in the state. ‘Jinnah nahi Ganna jeeta hai’
(Not Jinnah but sugarcane has won), claimed Rashtriya Lok Dal leader
Ajit Singh.
The results of the bypolls
to 11 assembly seats across 10 states also came as a major setback to
the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
