The first election results after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's demonetization move did not throw any unexpected results thus allowing political parties in the fray to interpret them according to their convenience.
All the by-polls in four Lok Sabha and 9 assembly seats across six states and one Union Territory were won by the incumbent political parties.
Giving the BJP a reason to rejoice after demonetization move, the party retained the two key Lok Sabha seats – Shahdol in Madhya Pradesh and Lakhimpur in Assam. The BJP also retained Nepanagar assembly seat in Madhya Pradesh and gained the Baithalangso assembly seat in Assam. The Congress candidate, who won the election in May, had defected to the BJP. The BJP also won assembly seat in Arunachal Pradesh where Desingu Pul, wife of former Chief Minister Kalikho Pul, won his Hayuliang seat.
"I thank the people for the continued faith in BJP and in the party's unwavering focus on development and good governance," PM Modi said in a tweet.
These favourable results prompted Union Minister Ananth Kumar to claim that "The people of India are with Narendra Modi."
However, giving some reason of hope to rival Congress, BJP's margin of win in all four seats fell down appreciably.
In Shahdol BJP candidate Gyan Singh defeated Congress's Himadri Singh by a little over 60,000 votes whereas in the 2014 election, the margin of his victory was nearly 2.5 lakh votes. In Lakhimpur also, BJP's victory margin fell by over 1 lakh votes — from 2.92 lakhs in 2014 to 1.9 lakhs votes.
Not willing to come on record after failing to register any upset win and retaining assembly seat in Puducherry, Congress sources said, the results show that BJP's graph is sliding.
Congress leader Paban Singh Ghatowar, however, alleged that BJP used black money during campaign by flying three helicopters in each of the two constituencies in Assam.
But the massive wins for Trinamool Congress (TMC) in two Lok Sabha seats and an assembly seat in Bengal provided ample fuel to Mamata Banerjee to open a frontal attack against PM Modi and demonetization. TMC won the Lok Sabha seats of Cooch Behar and Tamluk by over 4 lakh votes against BJP and CPI(M), and the Montesher assembly seat by over 1.2 lakh votes.
"The by-election result is a befitting reply against the anti-people demonetization by the Centre... BJP will be nowhere after the elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. After he failed to keep his promise to bring black money from abroad, the common people are being harassed. The hard earned money of the common people is being taken away," Banerjee said.
In Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa's AIADMK won all the three assembly seats against rival DMK.
AIADMK, on a roll since 2011 winning back-to-back state elections and sweeping the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, wrested the Aravakkurichi seat from DMK and retained Thanjavur and Thiruparankundram by margins ranging from more than 20,000 votes to 42,000.
The Manik Sarkar-led CPI(M) government managed to retain both the assembly seats in Tripura, However, the BJP came as a distant second on both the seats, replacing TMC and Congress.
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