BJP loses Kairana prestige battle: 'Jinnah hara, Ganna jeeta,' quips RLD

Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Tabbasum Hasan won the prestige battle of Kairana and defeated BJP’s Mriganka Singh by 44,618 votes on Thursday.

Reacting to the thumping victory in western Uttar Pradesh’s communally sensitive seat, RLD leader Jayant Chaudhary on Thursday said that the positive campaign undertaken by the party has yielded a positive outcome.

"We spoke about sugarcane, unemployment and all the missing factors of central and state government. BJP’s entire campaign was negative. So at the end of the day, our positive campaign helped us, Jinnah hara, Ganna jeeta," he told reporters.

Earlier, BJP Kairana candidate Mriganka Singh accepted defeat and congratulated her opponent.

"Many voters did vote for BJP, but with a lead of some thousand votes alliance has won. I would like to congratulate the candidate. The alliance has emerged strong and now we have to prepare better for future," she told ANI.

The Kairana seat had fallen vacant following the death of Mriganka's father and BJP MP Hukum Singh.

In a sharp criticism of the ruling part, the CPM said that BJP's loss at its "laboratory of communal and hate politics", Kairana, clearly shows that people did not accept the ruling party's governance and its destruction of the unity and integrity of India.

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury added that he .feared that the loss in the bypolls would push the RSS-BJP to spread communal tension and create a divide between religious communities to consolidate the "Hindutva votebank" ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

BJP as of now has only managed to win Maharashtra's Palghar bypoll by defeating Shiv Sena by 29572 votes.

However, its ally in Nagaland, Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) is leading over Naga People's Front (NPF) by 34, 669 votes.

Meanwhile, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) won by over 27,000 votes from Maharashtra's Bhandara-Gondiya bypoll Lok Sabha constituency by defeating BJP.