The counting of votes for the by-elections to the seven assembly seats in six states, which were held on Tuesday, began at 8:00 AM on Friday in the respective states.
Sudhakar Singh of the Samajwadi Party won the Ghosi bypoll by a landslide, defeating BJP turncoat Dara Singh Chauhan by a margin of over 42,000 votes. Singh won 124,427 votes, while Chauhan received 81,668 votes.
The opposition parties won four seats in the bypolls held in seven assembly constituencies in six states on Friday. The Samajwadi Party won the Ghosi seat in Uttar Pradesh, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha won the Dumri seat in Jharkhand, the Trinamool Congress won the Dhupguri seat in West Bengal and the Congress won the Puthuppally seat in Kerala. The BJP won the Tripura (Dhanpur and Boxanagar) and Beghaeshwar (Uttarakhand) seats.
The INDIA alliance, a recently formed political alliance of opposition parties, put up a united front in certain constituencies in the recent by-elections, notably Ghosi in Uttar Pradesh and Dumri in Jharkhand.
Of the seven seats that went to the polls, three were previously held by the BJP and one each by the Samajwadi Party, CPI, JMM and Congress. Samajwadi Party workers in Lucknow erupted in celebration as the party's candidate, Sudhakar Singh, took a comfortable lead in the Ghosi by-election.