BJP doesn’t need friends, allies: Sena

Tremors were felt in the saffron camp as an united Opposition decimated the BJP in the high-profile Kairana Lok Sabha constituency and Noorpur Assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh.

It may be recalled that the campaign in Kariana was communally charged.

Four days before the bypoll in Kairana, UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath had raised the issue of the Muzaffarnagar riots and urged people not to give “antisocial” elements the opportunity to trigger riots in western Uttar Pradesh.

The other major blow was the BJP’s defeat in the Noorpur Assembly seat in the state. SP candidate Naim Ul-Hasan, supported by an united Opposition, trounced the BJP’s Avni Singh by a margin of over 6,000 votes.

While the saving grace for the BJP was its lone victory in the Palghar Lok Sabha seat in Maharashtra, its ally NDPP managed a home run in Nagaland’s lone Lok Sabha seat. In Maharashtra, as the BJP romped home defeating the Shiv Sena candidate in the Palghar Lok Sabha seat, Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackrey launched a scathing attack on its ally. Indicating that the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance at this juncture hangs by a thread, Mr Thackeray slammed its ally by saying that the “BJP doesn’t need its friends and allies any more”. He further pointed out that the “BJP has lost its majority in the Lok Sabha”.

Another body blow was delivered to the ruling BJP in Jharkhand, where the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha backed by nonBJP outfits retained both the Assembly berths Gomia and Silli. In Silli, Seema Mahto wife of outgoing JMM MLA Amit Mahto, defeated her nearest rival, party president of AJSU (a BJP ally in the state) Sudesh Mahto by a margin of 13,508 votes. In Gomia, JMM candidate Babita Devi also retained the berth by defeating AJSU candidate Lambodar Mahto by a narrow margin on 1,355 votes.

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